Record-setting NM fire spreading in all directions

RUSSELL CONTRERAS

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

RESERVE, N.M. — A mas­sive wild­fire in the New Mex­ico wilder­ness that already is the largest in state his­tory spread in all direc­tions Thurs­day, and experts say it’s likely a pre­view of things to come as states across the West con­tend with a dan­ger­ous recipe of wind, low humid­ity and tinder-dry fuels.

The erratic Gila National For­est blaze grew overnight to more than 190,000 acres, or nearly 300 square miles, as it raced across the area’s steep, pon­derosa pine-covered hills and through its rugged canyons.

More than 1,200 fire­fight­ers are at the mas­sive blaze near the Ari­zona bor­der, which has destroyed a dozen cab­ins and eight out­build­ings, fire infor­ma­tion offi­cer Iris Estes said.

Experts say per­sis­tent drought, cli­mate change and shifts in land use and fire­fight­ing strate­gies mean other west­ern states likely will see sim­i­lar giant fires this season.

“We’ve been in a long drought cycle for the last 20 years, and con­di­tions now are great for these type of fires,” said Steve Pyne, author of “Tend­ing Fire. Cop­ing with America’s Wild­land Fires” and a life sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity. “Every­thing is in line.”

Agen­cies in New Mex­ico, Col­orado, Ari­zona and other west­ern states are brac­ing for the worst. Many coun­ties have estab­lished emer­gency tele­phone and email noti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems to warn of wild­fires, and most states have enlisted crews from nearby states to be ready when the big ones come.

“It’s highly likely that these fires are going to get so big that states are going to need out­side resources to fight them,” said Jeremy Sul­lens, a wild­land fire ana­lyst at the National Inter­a­gency Fire Center.

Accord­ing to the National Weather Ser­vice, a dry cli­mate is expected to pro­long drought con­di­tions across the Great Basin and cen­tral Rock­ies dur­ing the fire sea­son. Large por­tions of Nevada, Ari­zona, Utah, Col­orado and New Mex­ico will remain under severe drought conditions.

“We’re tran­si­tion­ing from La Nina to El Nino so we have no guid­ance to what’s going to hap­pen, like if we will get more rain or less rain,” said Ed Polasko, a National Weather Ser­vice meteorologist.

And it’s unclear what type of relief will come from mon­soon sea­son, which starts in mid-July, since experts say it’s dif­fi­cult to pre­dict what areas in the West will ben­e­fit, Sul­lens said.

A lack of mois­ture means fewer fuels to burn in some areas, but unburned veg­e­ta­tion else­where could pose a prob­lem since states received no sus­tained snow or rain this win­ter and spring.

That’s what hap­pened in New Mexico’s Gila Wilder­ness, where a lack of snow failed to push down grass, which wors­ened the fire dan­ger, Sul­lens said.

Typ­i­cally fires in the area don’t cross the mid­dle fork of the Gila River, said Danny Mon­toya, a mem­ber of the fire’s inci­dent com­mand team.

“This year, it did get across,” Mon­toya said. “We’re get­ting humid­ity lev­els dur­ing the day about 2 to 3 per­cent. Nor­mally, dur­ing sum­mer you’d see 5 to 12 percent.”

The two-week-old Gila for­est fire is the largest wild­fire burn­ing in the coun­try. Its size this week sur­passed New Mexico’s last record fire, a blaze last year that charred 156,593 acres and threat­ened the Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory, the nation’s pre­mier nuclear facility.

Offi­cials on Thurs­day closed the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Mon­u­ment due to smoke gen­er­ated from the fire. The National Park Ser­vice said the clo­sure would remain in effect until con­di­tions improve.

Mon­toya said he wouldn’t be sur­prise if smoke from the fire remained until mon­soon sea­son since the fire is burn­ing in rough areas and it’s dif­fi­cult for crews to fight it head-on.

Estes said the blaze is 5 per­cent contained.

“We’re con­tin­u­ing with burnout oper­a­tions and we’ve been helped with a slight rise in humid­ity and decreased winds,” she said.

New Mex­ico Gov. Susana Mar­tinez was sched­uled to fly over the fire Thurs­day to sur­vey the damage.

Other rea­sons states in the West will see more mas­sive fires this sea­son is because, cou­pled with drought and dry cli­mate, crews have expe­ri­enced changes in fire­fight­ing strate­gies and agen­cies have changed some poli­cies in fight­ing wild­fires in iso­lated areas, Pyne said.

“In the last 20 years or so, agen­cies have gen­er­ally been reluc­tant to put fire­fight­ers at risk in remote areas,” Pyne said. “It wasn’t like that decades ago.”

Instead, he said agen­cies have focused atten­tion on burnout oper­a­tions until con­di­tions are safe to begin containment.

Not that those prac­tices and the larges fires are bad things, Pyne said. For exam­ple, he said the Gila Wilder­ness has been a tar­get for con­trolled burns.

“So maybe,” Pyne said, “this is how it’s sup­posed to happen.”

Posted by AP News on May 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.