The Fires: Friday Morning Update
Last night, the Southwest Area Incident Management Team #5 gave a public Q&A regarding many aspects of the South Fork and Salt Fires.
The South Fork and Salt Fires are at just over 24,000 acres combined, as of 5:00 PM last night.
Sadly, there are two confirmed fatalities. Over 1,400 structures are listed as affected or burned.
Due to cloud-cover, there was no overnight infrared mapping flight conducted last night. Fire maps do not reflect measures taken to protect buildings and homes, and are subject to change.
Yesterday, Slurry Air Tankers were also unable to operate due to weather conditions.
The Southwest Area Incident Management Team delivered a live-video update at that time, answering community questions through the chat feature.
THE FIRES, THE FLOODS, THE AFTERMATH
Operations Section Chief Brandon Glenn said that the area north of hotshot work on the South Fork Fire from that day was “very secure.”
Glenn added that dozer lines were dug along the southern portion of the South Fork Fire.
For the Salt Fire, Glenn said, “This part that’s west of highway 70, that’s been good for a couple of days. Really secure. They’re continuing to mop up and get depth with hand crews.”
Gesturing at the southern tip of the Salt Fire map on the east side of highway 70, Glenn said, “That’s a lot of the work that is happening today. Hotshot crews, heavy equipment, putting in direct line on all of this. This White Tail Road and back [to the highway] is mostly dozer line.”
Moving toward the northern portion of the Salt Fire line, Glenn noted that the same methods were being used. He said hotshots were “going as direct as they can, going out into this northeast corner of the fire.”
Tom Bird, the Incident Meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Santa Teresa, New Mexico spoke next.
“I’ll tell you why I’m here. You would think oh, you’ve got all the firefighters here. Why do we have a meteorologist? When we talk about how fire behaves, how it moves, weather is one of the most critical components to that.”
Bird continued, “We brief all the crews and the overhead before they go out into the field so they know what to expect when they’re out there.”
Before moving into this week’s forecast, Bird focused on the conditions that enabled the fires: the “hot, dry, and windy index.”
On yesterday's rains, Bird said, “We wanted that moisture. But we didn’t want the large hail. We didn’t want the heavy rain that was almost two inches. And we certainly didn’t want the debris flows and the flash flooding.”
Thursday morning, Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford gave an interview to W105.1 out of Roswell. He confirmed that there were at least two water-rescues in light of the flash floods.
He also confirmed that “they have lost some bridges,” some that were recently rebuilt.
Mayor Crawford said the village was working with surrounding counties to remove debris. He said, “People are committed to rebuilding, the clean up will be the heart-break.”
Crawford mentioned the overwhelming show of federal and state support, and said, “It restores your faith in humanity.”
Arthur Gonzales, a Fire Behavior Analyst as part of a team of analysts, said,
“So, the three focus areas for us: first and foremost, firefighter safety. We’re trying to anticipate where the fire is going, how that fire is going to behave, where it’s going to move, so that we can keep folks in a safe position.”
“Second focus that we have is sharing with partners and stakeholders. A lot of values at risk out here."
“And the third part is why we’re here tonight, and that’s public information.”
Speaking on what to expect of the fire, Gonzales said,
“So, that moisture really hung around today and it really took the momentum out of the fire…over the next two or three days we expect very little lateral movement, very little spread. We still have the hazards out there with fire and still got a lot of work to do.”
Forest Supervisor Jason Freeman with the Lincoln National Forest said,
“We had staff from on the forest hop on it really quick and try to protect the communities the best they could, and without those individuals we wouldn’t be in the place we’re in right now to be starting to clean up.”
Undersheriff Geraldine Martinez with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said,
“I just want to reassure everybody. You know, we do have some evacuations that are set, and they’re gunna to have to be held for a considerable amount of time. So I ask everybody to be patient with us.”
After listing the help of NM State Police, Ruidoso Police, and the Otero County Sheriff’s Department, Martinez said,
“National Guard has arrived.
But we are manning ingress traffic control points coming in. We’re doing roving patrols, providing the security, welfare checks, escorting people in and out.”
She continued, “Try not to enter the evacuated areas, because it causes a strain on everybody that’s in there trying to protect our lands.”
Dave Gessar, Incident Commander with Southwest Area Five Incident Management Team. He said,
“We have up over a thousand personnel on this fire, and that’s just the fire fighters. There’s a lot of other cooperators that are out there that are assisting and helping us.
And it takes a team to do this, right?
So for us to come in and work with those entities, the local law enforcements, the power companies, the communications, the emergency management, everyone. It takes all of us to make this work.”
Gessar addressed the “unconventional” way that the fire fighting efforts were approached, fighting the front end of the fire, rather than “the heel.” This strategy was implemented in hopes of securing the village.
He went on to talk about what comes next. He said,
“Our main focus is really taking care of the community, and really trying to get folks back in as soon as we can. And that’s working with the local entities as well, to be able to get in there and make sure things are secure, make sure power’s back up, and that we can safely get people back into there.”
On Thursday, the Otero County Electric Cooperative (OCEC) released the following statement through their website and social media:
“We have approximately 1,500 electric accounts in the Alto area experiencing power outages due to damage sustained from the South Fork Fire. We have identified just under 50 poles that were burned in the fire, including the main three-phase line south of Lakeshore, which feeds much of Alto Village, Ski Run Road, Gavilan Canyon, Upper Gavilan, Sierra Vista, and Villa Madonna.
We have around 60 crew members, including contractors, actively working to rebuild damaged infrastructure. Depending on the area and crews' daily progress toward repairs, members can expect outages to persist for several days. Yesterday's rainstorms, while helpful for fire suppression, made access difficult for restoration efforts.
It is difficult to give a possible time of restoration at this time, but our area line supervisor is hopeful that we can restore power to some areas of Alto by Friday night.”
OCEC cautioned on Facebook that due to a lack of internet service, usage and outage reports through the SmartHub app will not update until internet is restored.
The official statement from OCEC also asked that members wait until services are restored to call in outages—especially from a lack of camera feeds, which will not resume until Wi-Fi is back.
Incident Commander Gessar said, “As far as cell-service, we have brought it what they call a COW. It’s with Verizon. It helps to try and boost the signal for folks.”
Fire Behavior Analyst Arthur Gonzales said, of managing flood risk in burn areas while an active fire is still going:
“We’re gunna have to do both at the same time, makes that just that much more complex. Folks are asking about access and egress and when these are gunna be lifted. [There’s] a lot of work that still has to occur to try to stabilize the area. Both from wildfire and then the post-fire effects.”
HOW CAN WE HELP?
Donations and shelters are available in surrounding towns. A current list of shelters is available through the Watch Duty app.
About donating directly to the fire fighters, Gesser states,
“We have over a thousand personnel here. So they’re fed. They have everything they need. They come with what they need for up to 21 days.
As for the community…the shelters where everyone is at, they’re accepting donations.”
Many individual calls for financial donations are swarming Facebook feeds, though the Ruidoso Fire Support Facebook page warns against scams.
You can donate directly to the Mescalero Apache Tribe through a hotline listed on the their website at 575-464-9920.
Ruidoso Mayor Crawford announced in his W105.1 interview that donations are welcome through the Community Foundation of Lincoln County.
This weekend, Cloudcroft Reader will share our interview with the Sacramento Hotshots, who are deployed on the South Fork and Salt Fires.
Updates from this week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Read Cloudcroft’s Emergency Alert Plan here.
We feel so helpless (from High Rolls) My mom had a home in Ruidoso for years..summers at race track, I worked at RHV hospital...We are Praying...Sally & Prentice Blanscett