Battling Wildfires in Cloudcroft: The Long Game
Battling Wildfires in Cloudcroft: The Long Game
Sacramento Ranger District Fire Management Officers reflect on decades of experience and strategy in wildfire management, the Ruidoso fires, and Cloudcroft's challenges. Part One
This first installment of our reporting on the Sacramento Ranger District Fire Management covers:
Cloudcroft Reader visited with Caleb Finch, the Sacramento Ranger District Fire Management Officer, and his team, Wendell Housler and Matthew Barone, in the Ranger Station office on September 4th.
The trio works here in the Sacramento Mountains, leading the charge on fires (like the recent Oakmont and Moser Fires) and strategizing on fire preparation for years to come.
The three former hotshots have a combined 90 years of experience in the field, which informs their decisions.
The U.S. Forest Service crew plays the long game as they manage the health and resilience of our forest through prescribed burns, fuel reduction, and active fire suppression. They had a lot to say. Here is part one of our interview.
Fire Fighting Strategy: The Art of War
When discussing fire mitigation and forest management, Finch often uses war metaphors—in this case, he is planning against the enemy of “fire intensity.”
Finch: “You can draw the correlation in the military where the hotshot crews are Special Forces resources with unique training and qualifications to attack certain portions of a fire. Your engine crews would be like a battalion of tanks that fit another niche of the overall suppression of the incident.”
“The engine crews will also hike into lightning strikes; they're not solely attached to their engines. We get lightning strikes in this district all the time, and they'll gear up, hike in, sleep there, deal with it, and put it out.”
“You've also got to look at it in this 3D sphere. Or in the military, the theater of war—it's the theater of wildfire. You have to look at everything happening currently and what will happen in the next two to four days. Your resources, your resource placement, and the incident commanders take all of this into play. It's a very dynamic environment.”
Housler: “If you've got a wind direction, your fire is usually burnt out in a V shape. 99.99% of the time, you won't be successful in stopping a fire. And you will be throwing your life away trying to be a barrier; we are also flammable.”
“What we'll do is anchor, flank, and pinch. That means you establish an anchor point where the fire will not come back behind what you've already done. Then you grab sides of it, and you progress with the fire. So you've got one foot in the black, where the fire has already burned. You are right on the fire's edge. You are suppressing that fire with one foot in the green. You've got the fire's edge, but you're taking that perimeter with you, so you've got a safe place to return to.”
Matthew Barone has been the superintendent of the Sacramento Hotshot crew for the past 25 years, and this is his first season as the Fuels Assistant Fire Management Officer.
Barone says, “Another big factor, too, is firefighter safety. When we're doing all this, we don't want to see somebody in a wheelchair for the rest of their life or, you know, pitching in for a casket. So that becomes a major factor in all of it also. Some of our friends aren't here today because of the job.”
Caleb Finch also volunteers with an Incident Management Team, which deploys for various national emergencies.
Finch says, “The Incident Command System came from the Forest Service, and the military adopted it. Somewhere back in the probably ‘30 to ‘50s, the military adopted the ICS, which came out of the United States Forest Service.”
While Finch organizes efforts against disasters nationwide, the Sacramento District Fire Management Officers (FMOs) respond to all local fires.
Recent Cloudcroft Fires
At the same time as the Moser Fire this May, the FMOs confirmed that a second fire, deemed the “Mile Marker 15 fire,” had started.
Fortunately, the High Rolls Volunteer Fire Department was on its way and quickly suppressed the small blaze just west of the village, with winds coming from the southwest.
Housler: “The lucky thing…that was in a different fuel type. It was in the oak understory, so it was just leaf litter. Between the highway, there's an old railroad grade right above the road that burned up the slope, hit that railroad grade, and was a natural barrier at that time that stopped it. Then, High Roll’s resources were right there. They sprayed it out, called it in, threw their stuff back on the trucks, and went to the next fire.”
Finch: “But right above that was fuels treatments from 20 years ago. So you look at the first, oh, it seems really thick, but you get up in there and it was nice, open, and clear. So it could, you know, if it would have moved through there, but it would push through with less intensity because the purpose of the fuel breaks isn't going to stop the fire. The purpose of the fuel breaks is to reduce that intensity.”
”When you think about the village of Cloudcroft and a fire potentially impacting the village, the purpose of the fuel breaks is to do that, to slow it down or to allow it to move around. And that's why it's essential that private homeowners do what they can do to their private property. There's a ton of literature out there on what they can do, but if they don't do their part, our fuel break isn't going to stop their home or their private property from being impacted. It's going to slow it down. But they still have to do their part to save their house.”
Wendell Housler, the Suppression Assistant Fire Management Officer for the Sacramento Ranger District, was the duty officer on the scene of the Moser Fire. The group recalls the blaze, only a few miles from Cloudcroft village.
Housler: “That was May 20th, so that's the peak of our fire season - windy season, driest point typically of the year. That was a complete response from the entire district: we get a fire report that day and everything responds. ”
”One of my engine captains was first on the scene. Caleb was right there with him within five minutes. And they made the initial call that we're going to need everything we've got plus more given the conditions that day. That started around 3 p.m. By midnight that night, I'd probably had 120 phone calls communicating with all of the people involved."
The Sacramento District has an air tanker base nearby, the Alamogordo Interagency Dispatch Center, and the Alamogordo Air Tanker Base.
Housler:" We had a lot of resources to throw at it right away. We used a lot of aviation from the tanker base to help. That aviation allows those guys to slow that progression until we can get the boots on the ground. It doesn't put the fire out. That's a misconception. It's only successful if you can get in there and follow that up with people.”
Putting out the Moser Fire required dipping into the village of Cloudcroft water resources.
Housler:" We were grabbing water from the storage facility by the ski area to suppress that fire. And that's not an ideal scenario. We don't want to tap into the community's drinking water supply.”
”But we don't have flowing water. We don't have standing reservoirs here. We're a sky island. We're a southwest forest where we don't have groundwater.”
”From the village aspect, it was a large part of their decision-making to go into higher-level fire restrictions at that time than [the Forest Service] did. They went no propane stoves within the village because they don't have the infrastructure or the water capacity to even fight a structure fire within the village limits because of water. That’s what their concern was.”
Finch: “You've got to remember, the water's a tool to help extinguish the fire, but it's not the tool to extinguish it. It's just an element that has to be considered. Firefighters are really good at adapting to many conditions in their environment. And so if there's a limited water source, firefighters will find a way to get more water. It's a concern, but one we can adapt to for sure.”
The South Fork and Salt Fires: the Aftermath
Finch, Housler, and Barone discuss the recent Ruidoso fires and the timeline for recovery.
Housler: “Honestly, in my entire career, we've been talking about a worst-case scenario for where a fire start would be the worst place for Ruidoso. And then it started there, and the fire management officer there that morning called me for resources. He said, you know the scenario we've been talking about our entire careers, worst case? He's like, that's where this fire started.”
”I would say Ruidoso dodged a bullet just based on the wind direction and then the weather that came in right after it. Otherwise, that could have been way worse.”
”So it was our worst-case scenario: in the time and the fuels and where it started, but then we had the moisture and wind direction that skirted some of Ruidoso instead of bulls eyeing it. Many people would look at the South Fork and say they didn't dodge anything. But really, the majority of the town dodged a bullet.”
Finch: “Just a five-degree difference in the wind direction could have been a huge impact.”
Monsoons wiped out fire danger as the South Fork and Salt Fires became contained. Unfortunately, the rains brought intense and dangerous flash flooding, leading to numerous water rescues, property damage, washed-out roads, and more.
Housler describes why flash flooding occurs in burn scars.
Housler: “Most of your stuff, which is ground litter, will absorb water; it's absorbent. So when you burn through that, you either get rid of all the absorbing material, all the pine needles, all the grasses, everything on the ground that will absorb the water is gone. And then the heat changes those soils and things on the ground to properties where they will not absorb water.”
When asked how long these conditions occur, Housler says, “It depends on the fire intensity. All the microbes down to the microscopic level have been removed and killed out of that soil. There is nothing to replenish that organic material that will absorb that water. It may be hundreds of years.”
Finch: “They can anticipate some challenges for years to come, yeah. It'll slow down as years pass, but there will be localization.”
Housler: “It's on the Earth's time scale, not ours.”
Cloudcroft’s Fire Risk: “When,” Not “If”
Finch: “Well, we definitely don't want to see a fire come through the village of Cloudcroft at all. I mean, that's number one. We don't want to see that.”
”We've been doing this for... 25, 30 years. And so we've seen fire seasons get longer, drier, hotter, and worse. And that's just the norm. It's increasing every year. And so I just go back to, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. When that happens, we don't know?”
”Prepare for when, prepare the home, prepare the family, prepare for when it might occur. How do you respond to an emergency incident? It's no different than a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake.”
Housler: “I met with two gentlemen from the Cloud Country West subdivision earlier in the year about their preparedness plan for the community. I encouraged them to treat their property, but also what we're talking about right now is not if, when there is an incident that impacts that community, how are they going to get all their people out safely?”
”As firefighting resources and staff are trying to get into the fire, all those evacuees are trying to get out on the same one-way access. So we're working right now with opening up other access points or egress points, even if it's through the forest, you know, existing old roads, so that they're being proactive in their plan to get people out of there safely while allowing us to go in there and fight the fire.”
”Those are proactive communities. You've got other subdivisions that maybe don't have a homeowners association or don't have any plan like that in place. Cloud Country West is trying to be proactive. Some of these other communities, through no fault of their own, just don't know any better until it happens.”
Barone: “Every national forest has that one community with a little wooden bridge to get into it. Big equipment can't cross it.”
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According to the FMO team, fire season has expanded.
Housler: “We talk about fire seasons. We used to call it fire season in the country from March to September. That was fire season. Now, we don't have fire season. It's not the 2024 fire season, which was March to September. It's just 2024.”
”We will typically have a wildfire in this district every month of the year. We don't get those sustained winters where we get the snow. Historically, none of this high country burned from the beginning of our careers. Because it got the snow load, it was moisture, higher elevation, and cooler. Now we're getting into these extended record summers, record heat.”
”Whether it's climate change, whatever it is, these higher-elevation mixed conifer areas are becoming more fire-susceptible. When we started our careers, we never worried about Cloudcroft burning. With these extended droughts, higher temperatures, more fuel loading, and more people moving in, the worst-case scenario now for Cloudcroft would be a fire start on the highway corridor or Karr Canyon with the slope and the wind coming at the community of Cloudcroft.”
”Our fuel treatments will hopefully allow that fire to transfer from higher intensity to lower intensity, where we can start to address it.”
”But then, if it spots (meaning jumps ahead) past our fuel treatments into Cloudcroft, which has had no fuel treatments, we have no control over that. And long-range spotting on a high-intensity fire can be two to three miles.”
Finch: “So fire risk changes changes seasonally. It depends on many factors that are out of humans' control. It has to do with the weather and the amount of moisture we get yearly.”
”Fire seasons will continue to be as they have been over the last five years for the foreseeable future unless one element changes, and that's the weather. Back in the 80s, the Sacramento mountains were known to be really wet. There were big winters, moss hanging off the trees, and water all over the place, but the climate changed in the mid-90s.”
”When I started in 96, Montana’s fire season only occurred every 8 to 10 years. And now there are yearly fires in Montana, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. It was never like that during the early 2000s. And now we get these longer, hotter summers. We get a monsoon season but it’s not as good as it was 10 or 20 years ago.”
”Anyway, at the end of the day, it's all about how we're getting hotter and drier. And as we continue to get hotter and drier, and the climate keeps moving in that direction, we will keep having these wildfires. And unless the climate shifts and goes back to what it once was, we have to be able to respond to those wildfires that are going to occur.”
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VFD Consolidation and Adaptable Fire Attitudes
Cloudcroft Reader recently reported on the county’s move to consolidate area volunteer fire departments, one of many resources that partner with the Sacramento Ranger District. We asked the FMOs to weigh in.
Finch: “There's a lot of valid reasons to do what they're doing. Over the last 20 years, the three of us have seen a decline in the number of volunteers that are staffing volunteer fire departments.”
”Back in the early 2000s, the volunteer fire departments around here were extremely robust and fully staffed. We've seen a steady decrease in that, and so I think that's part of some of that decision-making—but I would visit with the county on that. Obviously, fewer volunteers means fewer resources on the wildfire, but that's an element out of our control.”
Barone: “I've been kind of waiting to see how it looks once it's consolidated if that happens. I've heard there'll still be a chief overseeing the three departments, so there'll still be a Sac-Weed, Piñon, and Mayhill, but maybe just one chief oversees all three.”
”They're not all going to just abandon buildings and operate out of one central location.”
Housler: “Part of it's budget oversight. Part of it's just control, and it's the same thing we deal with in government. Many of these fire chiefs are our counterparts when we're out on fire. They respond just as we do and are all standing there watching issues. Instead of the water cooler, we've got a fire where we gather around, watch our resources work, and hash out all our problems and concerns, plus our cooperators' meetings and our chiefs' meetings and day-to-day communication.”
All three agree that serving as a volunteer firefighter is not only good for the community but a great way to grow as an individual.
Finch: “I would recommend that everybody should at least do six months as a fire (volunteer) because there are so many skill sets they will learn. They learn about teamwork. They learn about leadership. They learn about being challenged. They learn a lot about themselves. Adaptability. I always tell everybody to do it for a season. You don't have to make your career out of it.”
Housler: “You have to make these decisions and adapt to a rapidly changing fire environment, it's changing all the time. You make a plan, and all of a sudden, everything goes to pot. No plan survives the first shot.”
”It's the same thing in fire. Usually, nine or ten or three hundred things are failing at once, and you just have to keep moving forward.”
Finch: “And then you've got to ask yourself, what's controllable, what's not controllable? There's a lot you can do before a fire that you can control. And then when you're in the fire, and it's uncontrollable, there's not a single thing you can do about it. So you look for what you can do about it.”
Housler: “We all talk about it in our daily lives. Don't waste time on the things you can't control. It's really easy to say that. But when you're in a fire environment, you either have to do it or are too far behind the curve. I can't control that.”
”It just teaches you to be resilient. I feel bad for many of our families because we run our families like a fire crew. Dad's just like, guess what? Tomorrow morning, the sun's going to come up. Your flight gets canceled, a plane, whatever. It's the end of the world for the vacation. A firefighter is just like, no, it isn't. We're just going to figure out a way. We're going to grab a rental. We're going to wait and rebook a flight. It's not the end of the world.”
”So resiliency, and it's not just fire. Military, law enforcement, and many of those folks are really resilient people, and that's why. It's just because that's the world you live in.”
The next installment of our Sacramento District Fire Management interview will focus on prescribed burns, plans for Cloudcroft, property owner education, and what can be done to mitigate fire risk.
Cloudcroft Reader Presents: Cloudcroft’s Fire Risk, A free public forum to discuss fire risk, mitigation, insurance, and more.
The meeting will be held at the Lodge Pavillion from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25th.
Sponsored by Otero County Electric Cooperative
The forum will focus on what government agencies are doing to mitigate risks and what you can do to prepare for a fire. We'll also examine the impact on insurance and how you can best protect your investment.
Cloudcroft Reader will moderate a panel including:
Caleb Finch, District Fire Management Officer for the Sacramento Ranger District
Mario Romero, General Manager/CEO, Otero County Electric Cooperative
Ashley Dalton, Insurance, Ashley Dalton Agency.
Chief Erich Wuersching, Cloudcroft Volunteer Fire Department;
Nick Smokovich, Capitan District Forester/NM State Forestry Division;
Presentations will be kept short and sweet to ensure plenty of time for questions and discussions. Seating is limited. Cash bar.
Email your request to rsvp-fire@cloudcroftreader.com
We also want to thank The Lodge at Cloudcroft and Crystal Tompkins Photography for co-sponsoring the event.
Cloudcroft Reader is proud to be sponsored in part by businesses like the Otero County Electric Coopertive, Inc.