Posted on 05/01/2002 7:22:26 PM PDT by CedarDave
Last Update: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 18:58:10
The Peñasco Fire continued to rage out of control through the Lincoln National Forest Wednesday night, chasing residents from their homes and leaving destruction in its wake.
Three homes had burned in the blaze by Wednesday evening. Flames were within a half-mile of Mayhill, a town of about 180 structures. There were unconfirmed reports of cabins and a dining hall burning at an area camp.
The 1,500-acre fire jumped State Road 130 Wednesday afternoon and roared over a hillcrest towards Cox Canyon and James Canyon. At that point, the firefighting staging area was threatened. An evacuation was ordered for firefighters and media stationed there.
Fire information officer Rich Hartigan said the combination of dry fuels and high winds forced firefighters to abandon lines and move back to rebuild again.
"We lost it," he said.
U.S. 82 is closed from Cloudcroft to Hope. State Road 130 is also closed in the area.
Evacuations
Evacuated areas as of Wednesday evening included Mayhill, Curtis Canyon, James Canyon, Hay Canyon, Wills Canyon, Mountain Joy subdivision, and Camp Mary White, a girl scout camp. Residents along U.S. 82 were also advised to move out for their own safety.
An official of Cloudcroft said his community is not threatened as of Wednesday evening. The fire remained a little over ten miles away.
The Red Cross has set up a shelter for evacuees at Cloudcroft High School. Evacuees are told to bring a change of clothes, any medication and a pillow and blanket.
Evacuated pets can be taken to the Cloudcroft Skating Rink. Livestock can receive shelter at the Otero County Fairgrounds in Alamogordo.
Seniors who are members of the Cloudcroft Senior Center can go there.
A Red Cross spokesperson says volunteers are coming in as far away as Roswell, Alamogordo and Ruidoso to assist evacuees.
There are no reports of any injuries from the fire.
Fighting the Fire
Fire information officer Rich Hartigan said Wednesday evening that firefighters were spent. Many had been fighting the Peñasco Fire for 24 hours straight. He said his crews needed rest.
The State Emergency Operations Center was opened Wednesday to organize efforts to fight the fire.
Fifteen engines are on scene with more than 140 people fighting the blaze. Five air tankers remained ready at a nearby airport, but 30 mph winds and gusts to 40 mph kept them grounded Wednesday.
Lt. Governor Walter Bradley, who is acting governor while Governor Johnson is in Mexico, said he intended to sign a State of Emergency Declaration Thursday morning and order the National Guard to assist in fighting the blaze. Bradley said he also intended to tour the fire area personally on Thursday.
Governor Johnson, who is on a political visit in Mexico City, was alerted to the fire Wednesday afternoon and was discussing the situation with advisors.
Senator Jeff Bingaman told Eyewitness News 4 that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had approved a grant to provide funding for up to 75 percent of the costs of containing the fire.
The fire is human caused. However, exactly how it started remained under investigation.
Stay with Eyewitness News 4 and KOBTV.com for the latest information on this fire as details become available.
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A ridge erupts in flames near Mayhill Wednesday afternoon
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Residents evacuated the Mayhill area Wednesday
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Flames explode from a ridge in the high winds
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Flames and smoke rise above trees just behind structures near Mayhill
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Chopper 4 shows the vast size of the Peñasco Fire Wednesday afternoon
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I have dear friends who are ranchers living just south of the Highway 82 symbol shown on the map. They have a beautiful ranch in the pine and Douglas fir, and raise some cattle and do some lumbering (its private property). Based on the direction of fire travel (northeast), they should be safe from the flames. The trees long ago were cleared within 100 ft. of their ranch house and other immediate structures. But if they had to leave they would grab the dogs, the house cat and go to Cloudcroft or Alamogordo.
What about the cattle?
Tonight: Partly cloudy and breezy. Lows 50 to 55. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Few gusts to 35 mph this evening. Caution advised on area lakes.
Thursday: Windy with high clouds. Highs near 80. Southwest winds increasing to around 30 mph by mid afternoon with gusts near 45 mph.
Thursday Night: Windy in the evening. Lows 45 to 50. West winds around 30 mph in the evening...decreasing to 10 to 20 mph after midnight.
Friday: Breezy with high clouds. Highs near 80.
Sad. My old Black Lab, Sheba, is buried out here under a Sweet Holly tree, RIP.
Can you say BAR-B-QUE? LOL.
I do really hope these people (and their dogs, cat & cows) are okay. -bc
Thursday, May 2, 2002
N.M. May Cook Until August
By John Fleck Journal Staff WriterLong-range forecasts show little chance of drought relief in the Southwest for the foreseeable future, according to federal weather forecasters.
"I don't see much rain at all," said Douglas Le Comte of the government's Climate Prediction Center during a regular weekly briefing Wednesday on weather-related hazards around the country.
In addition to being dry, it has also been warmer than normal, according to the National Weather Service. Last month was the second warmest April since record-keeping began here in 1892, according to Chuck Jones, a senior forecaster at the service's Albuquerque office.
On Le Comte's map, the colored blobs that represent fire danger and extended drought cover New Mexico and slop over into surrounding states.
While drought-plagued parts of the northern Rocky Mountains have some hope of rainfall over the next two weeks, Le Comte's forecasts show little hope of any of that moisture making it into the Four Corners states.
"Significant improvement is not likely before August," according to the Climate Prediction Center's latest long-term forecast, "so the drought is forecast to persist." Charlie Liles, head of the Weather Service's Albuquerque office, agrees. "I don't see anything coming along," Liles said Wednesday.
Before anyone shouts "Global Warming", read this from yesterday's Journal:
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
History Calls This Rainy
By Jennifer McKee Journal Northern Bureau
SANTA FE — Bruce King and his wife Alice had been married 10 years when the rain stopped falling. All the grass died, said King, the three-time governor of New Mexico and longtime Estancia Valley rancher, recalling the drought of 1956. "There was nothing for the cows to eat," he said. And nothing to hold down the dry, sandy soil, which filled the air in nearly constant sandstorms. "It was every bit as dry as it was this time," King said. "Or drier."
But 1956, remembered as calamitous by most, represents the average amount of rainfall in New Mexico over the past 2,000 years. Information gleaned from tree-ring examinations by Henri Grissino-Mayer, a scientist at the University of Tennessee, shows regular, crushing droughts are a routine part of New Mexico history.
"The 1950s drought was nothing, really," said Grissino-Mayer. And the rain has been falling ever since. Since 1976, Grissino-Mayer said, New Mexico has had its wettest 25-year period. "You're in this false sense of security, like it's going to stay like this," he said. "You're wrong. ... Eventually, you're going to have a long-term drought that will make the 1950s drought pale in comparison."
Consider the mid-1500s, when New Mexico and most of the rest of the American continent was gripped in a 40-year drought, he said. "There's no way that large human populations would be able to live in that," said Grissino-Mayer. "It was not a good time."
A 1998 U.S. Department of Agriculture study that examined water use in the Middle Rio Grande Basin over the past 500 years found that droughts occurred about every nine years and lasted about 41/2 years. Tewa- and Keres-speaking tribes routinely abandoned their villages during drought years, according to the USDA study. Later, during a series of droughts in the 1600s, Pueblo and Hispanic villagers noted that Apaches and Navajos seemed to raid their towns more often during dry years. The study lists drought as one of the "environmental stresses" that led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when Pueblo peoples drove the Spaniards out of the state.
According to both the USDA study and tree-ring data, New Mexico is due for another drought. This could be it. Back in 1956, water was so tight, according to State Engineer Tom Turney, the Rio Grande couldn't make it all the way to Elephant Butte reservoir. Instead, the river splintered and evaporated before it plowed through the expanding dry lake bed left as the reservoir retreated. So crews dug a straight, hard canal through the lakebed, finally coaxing the Rio Grande to the shrunken reservoir.
As wet times returned to the state — the wettest on record — that canal disappeared underwater. This spring, the lake retreated enough to reveal the canal for the first time in almost 50 years. Today, Turney said, the Rio Grande flows into Elephant Butte at 8 percent of normal. He's expecting flow to be 2 percent of normal by July. Turney said crews will have to dig another canal to the reservoir this summer.
The drought is affecting other bodies of water in the state, too. Heron Lake, which holds the state's allotment of Colorado River water, stopped receiving new water because the rivers in Colorado that feed the reservoir started running dry. Heron provides storage for New Mexico's San Juan-Chama water, diverted from the headwaters of the San Juan River in Colorado. The San Juan-Chama water is expected to be a source of municipal water for Albuquerque, Santa Fe and other communities.
Will rainfall return to its historic lows? "You don't know what's going to happen," Turney said. "But if it does, we have to have adequate water supplies."
I keep going to KRQE.com and KOBTV.com for the latest info, but it's not very helpful for precise locations.
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