June 09 -- The Thompson Ridge Fire jumped a line on its southern flank Saturday night, forcing the closure of the main road through the Jemez Mountains:
During burning operations this evening, the fire spotted across the fireline on the southeast side and established on South Mountain. Fire personnel are on scene evaluating containment options. Further updates as information becomes available.
Effective 0600 Sunday, June 9, 2013, New Mexico Highway 4 will be closed at the junction of State Route 126 to the junction of State Route 501.
The fire has grown to 20,635 acres, more than 2,000 acres burned in 24 hours, according to data collected by fire crews in an overnight reconnaissance flight:
Fire managers said last night that the fire had jumped a line on the south side.
Meanwhile the Tres Lagunas Fire was nearly unchanged:
Crews fighting the Tres Lagunas Fire were doing their best to take advantage of favorable weather conditions on Friday before higher temperatures and lower humidity set in over the weekend.
"We made good progress yesterday, and so far today we're doing pretty good," said James Villard, the fire's night operations chief, as he was beginning his shift at 1 p.m. Friday. "It's when you get single digit RH (relative humidity) and wind when things really get to be a problem."
That's exactly what's expected in the coming days in the Santa Fe National Forest, where the Tres Lagunas Fire has burned 10,048 acres, as of Saturday night, since May 30 when a downed power line sparked the blaze about 10 miles north of Pecos.
Firefighters have benefited from partly cloudy skies, relative humidity reaching the mid-20s and temperatures in the 70s the last few days. In a week's time, the fire went from being 0 percent contained to 45 percent by Saturday.
But drier conditions and temperatures approaching 90 are anticipated next week.
Across the Rio Grande valley in the Jemez Mountains, the Thompson Ridge Fire had burned 18,530 acres by Saturday night and was 40 percent contained.
Villard, who oversees 76 firefighters on duty from noon each day to 2 a.m., had just finished a briefing with a group of them at the Horse Pasture spike camp about a mile south of the Holy Ghost area near Terrero on Friday.
Holy Ghost has been a high priority area for firefighters, because there are 26 summer homes and rental cabins there.
"The main thing we're worried about are the structures," Villard said. "The weather has given us a chance to get up there, and now we're patrolling that at night, making sure the unexpected doesn't happen."
Flames got within 20 feet of some homes, but so far none have been lost.
During the first few days of the fire, crews working in the Holy Ghost area set up an irrigation system that drew water from a creek, which ran continuously for several days in an effort to protect the homes. In addition to crews on the ground, Villard said helicopters have been dropping water retrieved from Monetary Lake a few miles down the road to keep the fire from spreading.
So far, it's worked. But Villard has seen too many wildland fires in his 31 years of firefighting to settle into a false sense of security.
"We're at the point we're doing mop up. But make no mistake, this fire is far from over," he said.
Villard knew weather conditions would worsen, and the Tres Lagunas Fire hasn't been an easy one to fight.
"We've got all the complex elements you can get in this fire," he said. "It's steep, rugged terrain. There are structures located in the same kind of terrain. And we had severe burning conditions earlier in the week.
"Accessibility is another major problem," he continued. "There's only one way in and one way out on this road."
N.M. 63 runs from Pecos into the heart of the fire and homes north of mile marker 16, where a roadblock has been established, have been evacuated.
While about 100 evacuated residents were allowed to return after the road block was moved back a couple miles, neither the U.S. Forest Service nor the San Miguel County and city of Las Vegas Emergency Management could
say for sure how many people were still waiting for the road to be reopened.
No one had taken advantage of a Red Cross shelter established at Pecos High School, however. Speculation is that most of those still shut out are staying with family or friends or found other accommodations.
An escorted trip up the road to Holy Ghost campground revealed little activity on Friday. While the steep hillside by the structures was still smoldering, the sprinklers had been shut off in Holy Ghost. And it was evident fire crews had removed vegetation around the homes.
Chain saws could be heard whining through the canyon as firefighters obscured by the thick forest worked to remove excess fuel and mop-up crews attended to hot spots along the roadside.
One such crew was spotted just south of Holy Ghost.
"This is what we do: up, down, up, down," said Doug Gonzales of the Pecos Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, while hauling a hose up a hillside to douse a smoldering tree stump.
"Anything that's hot or smoking, anything that's burning or smoldering, we take care of it," said his partner, Josh Ingersoll.
Ingersoll was one of the first firefighters on the scene when the fire broke out and this was ninth straight day working the fire.
"This is the easy stuff -- a day we get to take a breather," he said of the mop-up work.
Earlier in the week, Ingersoll was utilized to attack some of the spot fires in the area, caused either by lightning strikes or embers carried by the wind.
"It can get a little hairy doing that," he said, adding that the day before he was battling 30-foot flames. "You have to have awareness and make sure there are no flames around you."
Ingersoll and Gonzales were among the lucky ones. At least, they get to sleep in their own beds at night.
"Yeah, I get to go home and rest, make sure the family's OK, then hit it in the morning," Gonzales agreed.
More than 900 people, including firefighters and support personnel, were working the fire. While the majority are from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California were also represented. Most of them were sleeping in tents at the fire camp a few miles south of Pecos or at one of several spike camps established at various locations around the fire zone.
While the Holy Ghost area, the northwest corner of the fire and the north end that has burned into the Pecos Wilderness were still areas of concern, crews had established fire lines in key sections of the forest.
Even though weather conditions will soon change, firefighters feel they've made significant progress and there's a sense of optimism that they can get a handle on it before much more damage is done.
"It's starting to come together," Gonzales said.
-- Email the reporter at [email protected]. Call the reporter at 505-992-6277
Copyright 2013 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
