New Mexico - Fenton Lake State Park

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Fire grows to 2,500 acres, burns four summer homes

(Fenton Lake State Park-AP) -- The fire burning in the Jemez
Mountains north of Albuquerque has grown to more than 25-hundred
acres and four summer homes have burned.
That word from Santa Fe National Forest Service spokeswoman
Dolores Maese.
The smoke from the so-called Lakes Fire can be seen from
Albuquerque, about 60 miles away.
Campers at Fenton Lake State Park, and residents of Seven
Springs and Thompson Ridge were evacuated. Officials say the homes
in Seven Springs and Thompson Ridge were NOT immediately
threatened.
Officials closed State Highway 126, although evacuees were
allowed to use it to head toward Cuba.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Maese says there
have been no reports of lightning.


(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press

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FENTON LAKE STATE PARK, N.M. (AP) - Campers and homeowners were
evacuated Monday near Fenton Lake State Park, where a wildfire in
the Jemez Mountains grew to 3,000 acres and burned four summer
homes.
A plume of smoke from the Lakes Fire could be seen at least 50
miles away in Albuquerque.
"It's traveling quite rapidly, spotting along the way," said
Dolores Maese, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe National Forest.
Officials evacuated residents in the communities of Seven
Springs and Thompson Ridge as a precaution. Forest officials said
the two communities are made up of about 150 homes, many of which
are summer cabins.
Fire information officer Rita Skinner said the summer homes that
burned were south of Fenton Lake and that structures in Seven
Springs and Thompson Ridge were not immediately threatened by the
flames.
Engines from surrounding county fire departments and local
volunteer departments were stationed between the flames and the
homes, Maese said.
"They're doing structure protection. They're pretty busy," she
said late Monday.
Two air tankers made several drops of fire retardant on the
Lakes Fire by nightfall. Ground crews could not get close enough to
directly attack the flames, Maese said.
Two hot shot crews and 26 engines were assigned to the fire late
Monday, and officials said more firefighters and equipment were
expected to arrive Tuesday.
Forest officials said two shelters were set up for evacuees, one
at the Cuba High School and the other at the senior citizens'
center south of Jemez Springs.
Doug Shuptrine, who has lived in Seven Springs for 10 years,
packed medicine, food, clothes and his dog, Sassy, into his vehicle
Monday and left.
"Before I left, I could see right down the canyon and the
flames were leaping up the trees," he said. "That's when I knew
it was time to get out."
Shuptrine said in May, a fire came to within a quarter mile of
his home, but air tankers put it out in time.
Many firefighters are stationed in the Pacific Northwest for
fires up there, and "this time of year we don't have a lot of
resources in this area," Skinner said.
N.M. 126 from La Cueva to Cuba was closed. Officials said the
fire jumped the road late Monday and was headed north.
It was not immediately known what caused the fire. Maese said
there were no reports of lightning.
The fire is about 50 miles west of Los Alamos, where the Cerro
Grande wildfire burned nearly 43,000 acres and destroyed over 200
homes in 2000.
A second fire Monday in the Santa Fe National Forest, the Labor
Fire, was at about 75 acres, but was not threatening any homes or
private land, Skinner said. That blaze was burning near the Valles
Caldera National Preserve.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press.

[NJFFSA16]

FENTON LAKE STATE PARK, N.M. (AP) - Another small community was
evacuated Tuesday as an unusual late-season wildfire grew to 3,300
acres in the ponderosa and pinon pine forest of northern New
Mexico's Jemez Mountains.
Smoke from the Lakes Fire, which destroyed four summer homes
south of Fenton Lake on Monday, could be seen at least 50 miles
away in Albuquerque.
Officials began evacuating La Cueva at 6 a.m. Tuesday. The
community, a few miles east of Fenton Lake, has about 200 homes.
"We just feel like it would be a good idea to get those people
out of there," fire information officer Jim Whittington said.
Firefighters braced for the blaze to begin "torching and
running in the heat of the day," but it did not behave as
erratically as it did Monday, said Dolores Maese, spokeswoman for
the Santa Fe National Forest.
More than 200 firefighters battled the fire Tuesday, along with
tankers, water tankers and engines.
Those evacuating La Cueva joined residents of Seven Springs and
Thompson Ridge, who were evacuated Monday a few hours after the
Lakes Fire was spotted. Forest officials said those two communities
have about 150 homes, many of them summer cabins.
La Cueva resident Dr. Barbara Medlin had been visiting in the
Seattle area when friends called her about the fire. She rushed
back to New Mexico and stopped in Tuesday afternoon to register at
an evacuation shelter set up at the Jemez Valley Recreation Center
southeast of Fenton Lake.
"From what I can gather, I still have a house. I just don't
know if they'll let me in to it," she said.
She said her college-age son had removed some things from the
house, including important documents and photographs of her
children. But she wanted to retrieve more belongings.
"There've been so many fires out here in the West. We've been
crossing our fingers all summer," Medlin said.
Red Cross officials said about 25 families had registered at the
evacuation center, but no one stayed overnight Monday.
"These folks, they have family, they have friends and as soon
as these things strike, they go stay with them," said Bert
Blumenfeld, director of emergency services for the Tierra del Sol
Chapter of the American Red Cross near Santa Fe.
Kelvin Knowles, who owns a summer cabin in the La Cueva area,
planned to stay at the shelter Tuesday night.
"I've got nowhere else to go," he said. "I thought I might as
well be here, then I'd know what's going on."
Blumenfeld said he had hoped the arrival of the summer rains
would mean the end of fire danger.
"But given the nature of the monsoon, as weak as it was ...
these forests are in the same kind of condition they were before
the monsoon season," he said. "We're still in a very precarious
position in the state."
It's rare to have such a blaze this late in the year.
"Conditions like this are unlike anything we've seen here in a
really long time," said Chuck Maxwell, an Albuquerque-based
National Park Service meteorologist. "Some old-timers may remember
fighting something like this, but it's not likely any of the
firefighters will be familiar with it."
Abnormal weather patterns - extreme drought leading up to June,
a short monsoon season in July and a dry August - set the stage for
the blaze that came well after what normally would be the end of
New Mexico's fire season, said Maxwell, who works at the Southwest
Interagency Coordinating Center.
Parts of the Santa Fe National Forest were closed until mid-July
because of dry conditions Maxwell called the worst he'd ever seen.
"When you ask how dry it is, it's basically just damn dry," he
said.
Crews had contained about 15 percent of the blaze Tuesday after
burning off brush north of Fenton Lake State Park and working fire
lines by hand during the night, fire information officers said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it will pay 75
percent of the firefighting costs related to the Lakes Fire. The
cause of the blaze was still under investigation Tuesday.
Vernon Ely, acting director of the Southwest Coordination
Center, said the unusually large, late fire stretched firefighting
resources but did not catch agencies off guard.
"The only thing we didn't have a lot of when this started was
air tankers, but we've got that under control," he said. "We knew
the area was drying up and have been putting out 12 to 15 small
fires daily."
Leithe Klein of La Cueva Lodge was making coffee Tuesday morning
for a busload of firefighters from Mora. She had packed up
medicine, clothes, artwork and sculpting tools and four dogs, but
she said she was not leaving until she had to.
"I will just wait until it gets too smoky or embers start
falling on me," she said.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press

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FENTON LAKE STATE PARK, N.M. (AP) - Fenton Lake State Park has
reopened in time for Labor Day vacationers after a wildfire
scorched nearly 4,000 acres of forest around the holiday
destination.
The Lakes Fire destroyed four summer cabins and forced the
evacuation of nearly 250 homes while snaking through ponderosa and
pinon in the Jemez Mountains.
Rebecca Richards, a spokeswoman with the state Parks Division,
said authorities decided Thursday to reopen the state park but put
fire restrictions in place.
"It (the park) is safe and none of the structures were
affected" by the fire, Richards said. The water at the state park
also was unaffected, she added.
The fire restrictions at the state park are similar to those
placed on the surrounding Santa Fe National Forest. Fires and
fueled camp stoves will be allowed only in developed campsites and
prohibited in the backcountry, Richards said.
The Lakes Fire, first spotted Monday, was started by an
unattended campfire. Investigators had several leads but no
suspects were in custody, said fire information officer Jennifer
Farley.
A reward of $6,000 was offered for information leading to
whoever was responsible for setting the campfire.
The 3,917-acre wildfire burned the south and eastern sides of
Fenton Lake and fire crews burned brush north of the state park to
help contain the blaze earlier this week.
The weather cooperated with firefighters Thursday, bringing
cooler temperatures and higher humidity that kept the wildfire
under control, Farley said.
The Lakes Fire was 40 percent contained, and officials expected
to have it fully contained Sunday.
Crews on Thursday contained the nearby 187-acre Labor Fire. That
blaze, near the Valles Caldera National Preserve, was
lightning-caused.
A thunderstorm that brought rain to the area earlier this week
had crews hustling Thursday to put out 17 small lightning-sparked
fires.
"We're looking for them," said forest spokeswoman Dolores
Maese. "Some of them puff up and then disappear for a while, and
others are very quick to spot."

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press.