New Mexico Archives - Wildfire Today

South Fork Fire evacuates Ruidoso

Kelly AnderssonJune 18, 2024June 24, 2024WildfireMescalero Apache, New Mexico, Ruidoso1 Comment

Emergency officials ordered residents of Ruidoso to evacuate last Monday the 17th, and to do it immediately, ahead of a fast-moving wildfire in southern New Mexico.

UPDATE:  RUIDOSO, N.M. -- The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information about those responsible for starting two New Mexico wildfires that killed two people and destroyed hundreds of homes in the past week. The agency seeks information in connection with the South Fork Fire and the Salt Fire  near Ruidoso. The South Fork Fire was 26 percent contained on Saturday and the Salt Fire  was just 7 percent contained on Saturday morning; full containment's not expected till July 15.

“GO NOW: Do not attempt to gather belongings or protect your home. Evacuate immediately.” Residents of the village of Ruidoso got this message about 7 p.m. from local officials if they were online. CBS News reported that the Public Service Company of New Mexico shut off power to about 2000 customers in the town — at the request of fire managers — when the fire burned to nearly 1300 acres.

KRQE-TV reported that hot ash was falling in nearby community of Alto.

By Tuesday officials said the fire was over 13,900 acres and was zero percent contained. The fire’s threatening multiple structures, officials said, and numerous buildings had been lost. Highways are closed and traffic’s being re-routed to Roswell, where hospitals were trying to admit as many patients as possible as they were moved from the hospital in Ruidoso.

The South Fork Fire started Monday on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, where President Thora Walsh Padilla declared a state of emergency. It’s burning on tribal land and USFS land around Ruidoso.

A second fire, the 4880-acre Salt Fire, also was burning with zero containment on the reservation southwest of Ruidoso. Officials have closed Highway 70 from Botella Road to Highway 244 and residents east of Botella Road are evacuating.

Residents at Chatto Ridge are on “ready” status and Apache Summit is being evacuated. The Tribe is receiving reports of multiple additional fires on the Reservation. An evacuation center at Inn of the Mountain Gods Convention Center is available for residents — tribal members or not — at the Mescalero Community Center Gymnasium, and livestock can be held at the Mescalero Rodeo Grounds. Call (575)973-1394 if you need help with hauling your livestock.

::: BY THE WAY, legend has it that the Mescalero Red Hats, along with the Zuni and Santo Domingo fire crews, were the ones who discovered a bear cub with burnt paws in 1950 on the Capitan Gap Fire. That bear would go on to become Smokey Bear, the internationally recognized symbol of the nation’s fire prevention efforts.

NOTE FROM Mt. Taylor IHC

White Mountains fire in New Mexico closes wilderness trails

Kelly AnderssonMay 28, 2024May 28, 2024Uncategorized, WildfireBlue 2 Fire, Lincoln NF, New Mexico, RuidosoLeave a comment

The Lincoln National Forest has issued closure orders for several trails within the White Mountain Wilderness Area on the Smokey Bear Ranger District, and air resources are actively working the 7,200-acre Blue 2 Fire today. The fire has produced more smoke and is still active, even at night, because of high temperatures and dry conditions.

The western boundary of the restricted area is at the junction of Forest Service Road 107 and Big Bonito trail #36 and the order is intended to protect firefighters and the public on the Blue 2 Fire. The lightning-caused fire’s just a few miles north of Ruidoso and is still at zero containment, burning in timber and understory with 10 crews and 32 engines assigned. Other resources include 6 helicopters, 6 dozers, and 5 watertenders.

According to Ruidoso News, crews are using direct tactics to build line, while aircraft are dropping water and retardant along the firelines. Fire managers are using a feller-buncher in the Ski Run Road area and crews are setting up sprinklers and hoses around local homes for structure protection.

Blue 2 Fire map — click for larger version

Updates are available on the inciweb site, and Lincoln County also has updates online.

FEMA director resigns after fire fund failure

Kelly AnderssonJanuary 20, 2024WildfireCalf Canyon, FEMA, Hermits Peak, New Mexico4 Comments

Longtime federal agency official Angela Gladwell has “overseen” the $4 billion compensation fund that was supposed to pay victims of a disastrous 2022 New Mexico wildfire accidentally started by the Forest Service. Her resignation follows resounding criticism of FEMA’s handling of payments that were funded and due residents for damages caused by the Hermit’s Peak / Calf Canyon Fire, which destroyed over 400 homes and racked up literally billions of dollars in suppression costs and damages.

Angela Gladwell’s actually being “reassigned,” because the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “restructuring” its disaster response in New Mexico — in part because of loud and long criticism of its handling of disaster aid and damage payments — which Source New Mexico and ProPublica have followed for the past year.

A year after the fire, the FEMA claims office had paid less than 1 percent of its total funding allocated.

In a news release announcing Gladwell’s departure, Deborah Martinez with the claims office said she “successfully built a compensation program from the ground, assembling a team of locally hired staff with knowledge of New Mexico and the communities affected by the wildfires.” Martinez said Gladwell will now “transition to a new role” as FEMA consolidates recovery programs in the state. She would not, however, answer questions about what that “consolidation” might entail.

Surviving relatives sue Forest Service over flash flood deaths

Kelly AnderssonOctober 24, 2023Prescribed FireNew Mexico, prescribed fire2 Comments

Family members of three people who were killed last year in a flash flood that originated from the burn scar of the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history are suing the U.S. Forest Service. The wrongful death lawsuit, according to a PBS report, was filed earlier this month and alleges the USFS was negligent in managing the original prescribed burn and also failed to close roads and prevent access to areas at risk of flooding after the Hermit’s Peak – Calf Canyon Fire.

Three people from west Texas were vacationing at a family cabin in northern New Mexico in July of 2022 when seasonal monsoon storms hit the burn scar near Tecolote Creek. The resulting flash flood swept the three people to their deaths.

The lawsuit also contends that the USFS failed to warn the victims about the dangers of the wildfire and of potential flooding in the area. Neither the USFS nor the USDA has formally responded to the lawsuit, which states that the USDA did not provide a settlement offer or a denial of the claims that were initially filed in the case earlier this year.

The escaped fire burned more than 341,000 acres between early April and late June in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and was the largest of the record-breaking New Mexico fire season; it was in fact the largest of 2022 in the lower 48 states. It burned over 900 structures, including several hundred homes, and threatened more than 12,000 other structures in the area. A smoldering prescribed fire project rekindled and escaped control, merging with another prescribed burn that had also escaped. The combined fires burned for months.

The Las Dispensas prescribed fire, 1:07 p.m. MDT April 6, 2022. USFS photo. — The Las Dispensas prescribed fire, 1:07 p.m. MDT April 6, 2022. USFS photo

Congress allotted nearly $4 billion to compensate victims, and FEMA has paid over $101 million so far. Many families, though, complain that the federal government is not acknowledging the extent of the damage or the emotional toll the fire has taken, according to a Denver7 report.

FEMA has paid out just 2 percent of the fund designated to help wildfire victims rebuild. Some can’t wait much longer, and Source NM reported last month that many survivors are in limbo as they await compensation for the fire.

The prescribed fire was originally planned to reduce the risk of wildfire. The first small spot fire occurred at 1:35 and was controlled. At 2:26 another quarter-acre spot fire was caught.

Radio communication with some of the personnel was discovered to be a problem. It was later found that Bravo Holding was using a separate “crew net” and was not monitoring the planned frequency.

Ignition stopped a couple of times as spot fires were suppressed, but by about 4 p.m. when the RH dropped to 10 percent there were at least a dozen spots. Shortly thereafter the burn boss requested contingency resources and all resources were pulled off the fire. At 4:25 a dispatcher reported that the contingency resources were actually in Taos, New Mexico, 70 miles away, at a training exercise.

About 4 hours after ignition began, a dispatcher told the agency administrator that the burn boss and FMO recommended it be declared a wildfire; the administrator made the wildfire declaration and the Las Dispensas burn officially became the Hermits Peak Fire.

An 80-page report (4.7Mb PDF) by the USFS later concluded that management of the prescribed fire generally followed the approved prescribed fire plan for most — but not all — of the parameters. The people on the ground thought they were within (or close to) the prescription limits, but fuel moistures were lower than they realized and the increased heavy fuel loading after fireline prep also contributed to increased risk of escape.

FROM THE REPORT: “We ask them to make up ground on long-needed and far-behind proactive restoration work while barely allowing time to recover from a previously taxing wildland fire response and preparing to respond yet again. We ask them to restore fire process to ecosystems that have evolved to burn, but many of which are now primed for extreme fire behavior due to our own decisions to exclude or suppress fire in these areas.”

Forest Service withdraws decision about 50,566-acre fuel treatment project in New Mexico

Bill GabbertJuly 27, 2022July 27, 2022Prescribed FireEnvironmental Assessment, NEPA, New Mexico, Santa Fe National Forest19 Comments

Planned on the Santa Fe National Forest

The U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday that they are withdrawing the draft Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact issued in March for the 50,566-acre Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project. It would involve prescribed fire and vegetation thinning treatments on 36,680 acres east of Santa Fe, New Mexico on a landscape scale. Each year at least 750 acres would have been thinned and up to 4,000 acres would have been treated with prescribed fire during a 15- to 20-year time frame.

Map Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project — Map of the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project.

On July 12 the Board of County Commissioners of Santa Fe County passed a resolution urging the FS to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a planned very large fuel management project. The FS went through the much less complicated Environmental Assessment (EA) process, which included the draft EA, public outreach, and accepting comments, then issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) which they felt enabled the implementation of the project.

The statement issued by the Santa Fe National Forest dated July 26, 2022 said, “The SFNF is taking this step to reengage with our partners and community on this very important project to improve forest health in and around Santa Fe…Our intent is to reinitiate the decision and NEPA process for this project after the Chiefs 90-day pause with the publication of a legal notice in the Albuquerque Journal, the newspaper of record. If you previously submitted an objection to the final environmental assessment and draft notice of decision, you will need to resubmit your objection at that time.”

After three prescribed burning projects on the Santa Fe National Forest got out of control since 2018 and had to be converted to wildfires, some of the locals are worried about future projects on the forest.

The current 341,735-acre Calf Canyon / Hermits Peak Fire is the result of two prescribed fires that escaped control earlier this year on the Santa Fe National Forest. One was a broadcast burn that crossed control lines during strong winds. The other originated from slash piles that were ignited in late January that continued burning for months. In mid-April one or more of those piles became very active during strong winds and merged with the other escaped fire on April 22. The fire has destroyed at least 400 homes, forced up to 18,000 people to evacuate their properties, resulted in flooding, and cost more than $248 million in firefighting expenses.

In 2018 another pile burning project on the Santa Fe escaped months after it was ignited and had to be converted to a wildfire. A Facilitated Learning Analysis found that “communication” and “prescribed fire preparation and risk” were common themes.

The notice from the FS is below.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/USFS_withdraws_Decision_Notice.pdf” title=”USFS withdraws Decision Notice Santa Fe National Forest”]

The USFS documents regarding the project can be found here.

Names released of four first responders killed in New Mexico helicopter crash

Bill GabbertJuly 18, 2022July 18, 2022Uncategorizedcrash, helicopter, lodd, New Mexico9 Comments

Bernalillo County Fire Rescue Specialist Matthew King

The four first responders that died Saturday July 16 when a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office helicopter crashed northeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico have been identified: Undersheriff Larry Koren, Lieutenant Fred Beers, Deputy Michael Levison, and Rescue Specialist Matthew King. They were the only personnel on board.

All worked for the Sheriff’s Department except for Mr. King who was with the Bernalillo County Fire Department.

The Sheriff’s Department said in a news release July 17 that the “Metro 2” helicopter and its crew were assisting with the East Mesa Fire, providing bucket drops and other air logistics needs to fire crews on the ground.