CAPITAN, N.M. -- Firefighters who saved a wild turkey and her eggs while fighting the Peppin Fire near Capitan, N.M., are being criticized by at least one property owner who charged they did not do enough to save 12 cabins that burned down.
Paula Cairns, of Boerne, Texas, who owns one of the destroyed cabins, said she was angry that forest officials publicized they had saved the turkey but said little about the destruction of her family's cabin.
"We were flabbergasted (when we heard about the turkey). We felt like it was very insensitive, that no efforts were made to preserve our area of the forest. We would have loved for them to come in and do a fire line around our area," said Cairns, whose family has owned the cabin for more than 50 years.
Cairns said she would have gone to the cabin to save what she could if she had known the structure was in danger. She also said she felt forest officials could have protected the cabin community as the turkey's nest was protected.
Fire information officer Beth Wilson said the fire spread very quickly into the cabin area and firefighters began structure protection but had to leave when it became dangerous.
"There was literally no time ... to do any substantial work in there because the fire blew up so quickly and damaged the structures so quickly," she said.
The cabins, built on land leased from the National Forest Service, were evacuated about 24 hours before they burned so no one would be injured. "Thank goodness we had the foresight to evacuate them," Wilson said.
She said the saving of the turkey was possible because firefighters had control of the area.
Last week, a crew of firefighters known as "hotshots" came across a wild turkey and her nest of eggs. They cleared an area around the hen so that fire would not get to her and her eggs.
"The hotshots are humane, too, so the crew just wanted to make sure she was taken care of," Wilson said.
As of Monday morning, the lightning-caused fire had burned about 48,000 acres and caused $5 million of damage. It was 70 percent contained Monday.
