And After the Fire . . .

וְאַחַ֤ר הָרַ֙עַשׁ֙ אֵ֔שׁ לֹ֥א בָאֵ֖שׁ יְהוָ֑ה וְאַחַ֣ר הָאֵ֔שׁ קֹ֖ול דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה׃
And after the earthquake, a fire--the Eternal
was not in the fire. And after the fire--kol
ramamah dakah--a soft murmuring voice.
-- I Kings 19:12

The past month has been a very fast ride. During the first week of June, the Wallow fire in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest took off, leaping quickly to the northeast, sending its smoke and ash up to our ranch on winds so strong that the fire was spotting up to three miles ahead of the line. That week was surreal here, as we went about with windows closed, peering through windows at a world gone smoky and eerily, translucently orange and red. Even up in Albuquerque and Tijeras, the smoke was seen and smelled, the funeral pyre of thousands upon thousands of trees covering six states.

We lost a lot of time down here on what has now been formally named Freedom Ridge Ranch, the chickens are late arriving, the garden only got half-in, and will have to be stocked with plants started at nurseries in Show Low and Albuquerque. We spent a day moving the horses down to the Middle Rio Grande Valley and another moving them back. But we did get the house in Tijeras on the market (listing here in case you know somebody . . .) and we are pretty close to being done moving in down here at the ranch. Work here is now proceeding apace, and though catching up to what we envisioned for this summer is highly unlikely, we find ourselves grateful for what could have happened but didn't as we greet a timely monsoon season with fresh appreciation.

Over the past week we have had the opportunity to drive roads that were closed a week or two ago, through the Apache-Sitgreaves and in the Rim Country, on Monday, down to Luna and today over to Pinetop-Lakeside. Each time, as we drove across the state line, we saw the shadow on Escudillo Mountain, the burned areas coming down near to Eager itself. We saw the blackened places along US 180 and SR 260, where backfires had been set. But we also saw the damp ground where the monsoon rains had brought out the green of new growth. And near the Fort Apache ski area, we saw the ferns under the jack pines, impossibly green where a month ago there was only brown. Deer crossed the highway, taking their own sweet time, and wild horses were grazing again near the lakes and rivers between the Greer turnoff and McNary.


The fire was terribly hard on some of our friends and neighbors, some losing their homes and everything but what they could take out, but many lost only their refrigerators full of food when the electricity went out while they were evacuated. We discovered this when we went into Lowe's at Show Low today to find a fitting for the ice maker/water line we were installing for our refrigerator. Lowe's was out of refrigerator water line fittings. They were low on refrigerators. They had been selling them off the floor to people who needed them. People from Nutrioso, from Alpine, from Greer and Sunrise. The insurance companies were paying Lowe's to lock and haul off the old refrigerators with spoiled food within, and install new ones. And Lowe's was throwing in the new fittings because although the old ones may have been good, when they install they are liable for any new leaks. The kindness of neighbors and the kindness of strangers, and even of large corporations, is a balm to the spirits of those who are now rebuilding homes and lives. We saw each other through, with a little help from friends and strangers.

The fire was terribly hard on some, and very difficult for most here, but the primary response is gratitude. Where ever we have seen burned ridges and valleys, we have also seen the signs. In Nutrioso, in Alpine, in South Fork, in Luna, in Greer: THANK YOU! God Bless Our Firefighters! Thank You, Our Heroes! GREER, ARIZONA: Still Here, Still Green. In case Obama is wondering, this is the fiercely independent, decidedly can-do spirit of Flyover Country, the real America. We do cling to our God and our guns. Proudly. Gratefully. We lift our small voices to the sky.


And now the monsoon rains have come, on schedule, and they are falling every afternoon over the White Mountains, from the Rim to Escudillo, just as they do most years across the southwest beginning on the 4th of July. Waters are moving over the burned scars, and in the unburned forest still here, still green. The waters trickle, drop upon drop, they beat a steady rhythm on the metal roof at Freedom Ridge Ranch. The winds blow cool air and soft clouds where once it was all fire and smoke and ashes. And we have seen rainbows, double and triple, arching across the mesas and canyons. Promises that life returns with the water.


And after the fire . . . kol rammamah dakah. A soft murmuring voice.

Picture Credits: Top--National Forest Service InciWeb. Middle--Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest Web Page. Bottom: Rain over Escudillo, taken August 2010, Ragamuffin Studies.

Arizona's Wallow Fire: The Ragamuffin Ranch Experience

On Sunday, May 29, with all of us present at Ragamuffin Ranch, we ate a nice breakfast, and then moved washers, dryers and refrigerators into the house, and out of the house to the cabin and the barn, in order to get each where we wanted it, since we had inherited the former owners appliances and moved down our own. After that was done, the Engineering Geek left to return the rented utility trailer to U-haul in Albuquerque, and the Cowboy-In-Training and I went to Springerville, Arizona--about 30 miles away--to do some necessary shopping.

It was a clear, cool and very windy day, with a few puffy clouds over the White Mountains. As we walked across the Safeway Parking lot, dodging wind-blown shopping carts bent on catching the cows in the pasture next door, I watched a hard-bitten character in a black cowboy hat flip a smoking cigarette onto the pavement. He started to walk away, but he must have felt my glare, for he came back and ground out the ember, and tipped his hat. "He could have started a fire!" the CIT hissed when he had passed by, and I replied: "And with this wind, he could have burned down the whole town."

We did our shopping, ate our lunch, and began the drive back across the state line into New Mexico. As the CIT drove, I was watching as a white cloud built to the southwest, over the heart of the Rim Country, and then it seemed that the wind began blowing dust from the clouds toward us. By the time I opened the gate at Ragamuffin Ranch, standing aside to let the CIT drive through, I saw a definite haze clinging to the bottom of our washes and along the ridgelines. "Smoke," I said, having closed the gate and jumped into shotgun position for the drive to Ragamuffin Ranch headquarters.

When we had got the groceries inside, the CIT went to feed the horses, and I turned on my computer. Arizona Fires website had no information yet, but New Mexico Fires had a tweet along the right banner of the page. Following the tweet, I was taken to InciWeb for the Southwest Region, and found out that a small fire had been discovered in the Bear Wallow wilderness of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest 18 miles southwest of Alpine, Arizona, which was already a reassuring 50 miles away from us. "No problem," I told the CIT before we sat down to dinner. "It's small, yet, and far away. They'll get it under control before we have to worry about it."

On Wednesday, when I left for Ragamuffin House in Tijeras, the fire was not under control, and we had seen smoke Tuesday evening, but it was still reasonably small and far away. But while I was driving, the Red Flag winds blew that fire up, and overnight that night it grew from 6,000 acres to 40,000 acres. And on Thursday evening, the smoke from the fire blanketed Albuquerque, and was so thick that people wondered if the Bosque was burning again. It was, the radio guy reassured us on the news, the Wallow fire.

I drove back to Ragamuffin Ranch on Sunday, as we watched the fire grow and grow. While I was driving back, they evacuated Alpine and Nutrioso, and dry lighting started fires in Catron County. Fire spotters were stationed along US 60, and one was on the hillside from which I took this picture, looking west through clouds of smoke and thunder toward the fire burning in Arizona. The very small shower I drove through on the Continental Divide fell with ash, making a strange gray mud on the windshield.


The fire grew by the hour and by the day. The the smoke cloud sat above the ridges on the Ragamuffin Ranch road, and it stretched from this western horizon all the way to east, a thick border of smoke dividing the sky, and headed toward the Rio Grande valley. On Monday I discovered all the best websites to get up to date news, as the fire grew into the hundreds of thousands of acres, and towns near Escudilla Mountain on the New Mexico border were evacuated.



The animals got weary of the smoke very quickly, and even the horses, who spend snowy days out under the sky, were reluctant to come out of their stalls. Here, Rafie stands peering out with a look that says it all.

By Monday evening, there were two Type 1 Incident Command Teams in charge of nearly 1000 firefighters, and no containment. We had spent the day in a fog of smoke here at the ranch that got thicker and thicker, so that working outdoors was impossible and the gloom made us turn on the lights at 3 in the afternoon. At the community meeting that night, the residents of Eager and Springerville were told to prepare for possible evacuation, and the residents of Greer were evacuated.




Tuesday, and there was optimism that the firefighters would hold the perimeter between Nelson Reservoir and Greer, and no further evacuations would be necessary. The CIT and I went to Quemado to get a few things at the little Country Store, and buy a cab for the '93 Dodge Ram that he is restoring to its former glory. While I sat over a cup of coffee at the Largo Cafe, talking to a trucker from Tennessee who was stranded for need of a new engine computer, we watched the smoke roll in once again. Then, as I was mopping up the last of my blueberry pie and ice cream, a couple came in and sat down to order. The woman was crying. I gave her a kleenex and she said, "Well, after all, I've never been kicked out town before." They were from Eager, and the southern part of that little Mountain town where I shop at the Merc and at Basha's was being evacuated. We stopped for the outhouse at the log yard on the way in, and ash covered the seat and the paper. The setting sun through the smoke gave the ranch an eerie, Mars-like ambiance.

Still, Tuesday night the meeting--which was streamed--was brave in the face of difficulty. We were told that they were working on holding the line at Eager, but that since Wednesday was predicted to be another Red Flag windy day, other residents of Springerville-Eager ought to be prepared.


Wednesday morning, as the sun rose through the ever-present smoke, we learned that the lines from Eager to Greer had held, but at the morning press briefing, the IC Commander said that another Red Flag windy day meant that it would be a hard day. It was, as the smoke thickened and the Mars landscape returned, we hoped for the best and began preparing for the worst. We had a phone meeting with the EG and with our partner, and the EG began driving down with the horse trailer so that we could move the horses. Thus we spent our 9th anniversary preparing to evacuate if it comes to that.By evening, the fire was now less than 25 miles away.

So Wednesday evening, when the CIT and I finished watching a movie, and just as the EG pulled up with the trailer, we turned on the computer and learned that all of Springerville and Eager were being evacuated. The Community Meeting was cancelled, and we began to plan, as we ate our dairy and fish meal for Shavuot, to evacuate the horses.

They left this morning, after we learned that the fire went through Greer and structures were lost, and that the New Mexico National Guard is at Luna, near the Arizona border and that the Quemado Volunteer Fire Department are in Coyote Canyon, waiting to engage the fire as it nears the state line.


And so I wait, while the EG and CIT drive the horses to the Rio Grande Valley, and I wonder. So far the lines at Eager and Escudilla Mountain, at Luna and at Coyote Creek are holding. Will they hold today? Tonight? Will Luna, under a pre-evacuation notice by the Catron County Sheriff since Monday, will Luna be spared? Will the fire enter New Mexico at Coyote Creek and Bonita? Will it trigger an evacuation for us in a few days? And the big question: Where will it end?

The smoke seems thinner now. Is that a harbinger of good news?

New Mexico Weather Patterns and Fire

A comment from my friend Denise over at Mom in Madison led us to do a little information gathering about New Mexico's seasonal weather patterns and how they relate to our weird fire seasons. Thanks, Denise!


On the California Coast, fire danger is greatest in the late summer-fall, due to extreme dryness, heat, and winds coming off the ocean--like Southern California's Santa Ana Winds.


But the New Mexico pattern is different.


Much of the state is Chihuahuan Desert country with associated high desert grasslands, shortgrass prairie, and montaine forests. The life zones are pushed higher because much of the state lies below the 36th latitude. That means that in central New Mexico--where we live--we don't see Pinyon-Juniper Woodland below about 6,000 feet (depending on which side of the mountain) and Ponderosa Pine Forest does not become well-established below about 7800 feet. Also, average annual precipitation in the Rio Grande Valley is less than 10 inches a year, and in the Central Mountains, it is about 16 inches a year--less further south and more further north. Twenty inches is about the upper limit on annual precipitation for anywhere in the state.


New Mexico has the bi-modal precipitation pattern common to the Chihuahuan Desert.
We typically have a dry and windy spring and fall due to to movement of the jetstream high altitude pattern during those seasons. Starting in late June of early July, we get the summer monsoon storms, which are influenced by the ENSO pattern (El Nino-Southern Oscillation). In a good El Nino year, we get more precipitation--as in the summer of 2006, and in a strong La Nina year, we get less precipitation. In an ordinary year (neither El Nino or La Nina) we get an precipitation somewhere between the two. If we have a long string of weak El Nino's, or strong La Ninas, we have summer drought conditions. The monsoonal winds last until late August or early September, and then we return to a fall dry, warm and sunny situation. Our winter snowfall is also influenced by ENSO, and we watch the mountain snowpack carefully, because our overall drought conditions depend a lot of whether we get good snowpack or not. Also, if spring conditions come too soon, we can end up with a summer drought situation and an earlier fire season. (This picture is from the NOAA website and you can learn all about the North American Monsoon by clicking the link).


What all of this adds up to is that our most extreme fire seasons tend to be spring and fall.
During La Nina years, if the monsoon fails, we can end up with a fire season that extends from March-October or even November. Last year, the worst fire in Central New Mexico happened at the end of November--the Ojo fire--which was not far from the current Trigo fire.



Last year, we had a good but normal monsoon which helped mitigate the fire danger in summer. This year it looks like the La Nina pattern could persist, causing us more fire problems. The last two summers have also increased grasses and forbs, so a dry summer means a heightened grassland fire danger.

This year, too, the March winds have lasted into the beginning of May. Since mid-March, we have had more days of Red-Flag Fire Warnings than not. A Red-Flag Fire Warning requires the combination of warm, sunny days--which lifts the thermals over the mountains in the afternoon--lack of precipitation and low relative humidity, and high regional winds from fast moving storm systems that mix downward as the day progresses.

Yesterday, the Trigo fire jumped containment due to high winds. Slightly lower pressures due to a fast moving storm system from which we do not expect precipitation means that these high-wind conditions will continue through Friday. Exacerbating the problem is that fixed-wing planes cannot drop retardant in the high winds, so they usually only get a few hours near sunset to to their drops. The fire is already relatively inaccessible, being on peaks and in canyons, but the high winds mean that the hot-shot crews are pulled off the mountain frequently.


What has made all of this much worse is that the fuel loads of the central mountains are high due to what we call "dirty woods"--lots of snags and deadfall--created by the USDA's misguided fire-suppression policies of the past 50 years. You know what they say about "good intentions."


Fire is a natural part of this ecosystem--and small, frequent fires keep the fuel loads down, preventing the kind of crown forest fires that have extremely high heat, create their own weather, and burn the entire forest.


Live and learn.

Trigo Fire

They almost had it out. It was under control as of yesterday, and they thought they'd beaten it.


But then the wind came up this afternoon...and whoosh!

It is burning on the ridgeline of Capilla Peak and threatens the UNM Observatory.
Three towns are under evacuation orders: Tajique, Manzano and Torreon.


Here is what the smoke looked like above the Manzanos. The picture was taken by Bruce's colleague at Sandia, from a window in their office building. From there, it is about 50 miles south to Manzano.


I saw it as I got off the freeway at Tramway this afternoon.


I have heard this fire was caused by a couple of irresponsible turkey hunters. It burned all last week, and over the weekend. The winds died down Sunday, and by Tuesday they almost had it licked.

Almost.

Such a sad little word.


They expect it to burn 6,000 acres by morning.