Can’t say my thoughts eased with the Forest Service nightly briefing Sunday on the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire.
I hope we do not have to remember this as the fire that burned from Pecos to Taos.
The 40-day-old fire is near 300,000 acres and stretches 45 miles south to north through the Sangre de Cristo mountains, It might soon be declared the largest in the state’s history.
East winds expected tonight and I’m worried about pushes to the southwest toward the Pecos canyon and to the northwest into Taos County. Evacuations warnings for Upper and Lower Colonias and a couple of other areas near Pecos issued Sunday afternoon. Here is the full fire report for May 15:
An army of nearly 2,000 people is fighting this beast but the country is steep and dry and full of little ranches and homesteads stemming from Hispanic settlement of the mountains in the 18th Century.
There is a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms over the mountains tomorrow but even they have firefighters worrying about outflow winds.
Things seem a little calmer on the smaller Cerro Pelado fire in the Jemez mountains, which started later than the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire in the Sangre de Cristo. Here is the May 15 report:
dream ranch 