By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
Several fires in the area, which were ignited by lightning strikes, have been contained but not before one blaze displaced hundreds of residents.
The Big Spring Fire, which began six miles west of Tajique, burned 5,478 acres and destroyed six homes and 10 outbuildings. It was 100 percent contained by Wednesday.
The Bar S Fire started with a lightning strike on the evening of June 22 off of N.M. 3 near mile marker 33 in Torrance County. It burned somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 acres as of last week, officials said. By June 26, officials said the fire had been 100 percent contained and there were no reported injuries.
Cooler temperatures, higher humidity and rainfall on the Big Spring Fire assisted firefighters with suppression efforts last weekend, according to a press release.
“We were very fortunate that we got the same (Southwest Area Incident Management Team) that we had in Trigo. We got right in and started working well. We didn't encounter anything that couldn't be mitigated,” Torrance County Emergency Manager John Cordova said.
The same fire personnel from the national team and the county worked on both the Trigo Fire, which burned 59 homes and charred 13,709 acres earlier this year, and the Big Spring Fire, Cordova said.
Cordova said he expects the county will receive funding to help cover expenses incurred by the fire although he is unable to say how much that will be.
The fire burned some power lines on the north side of Fourth of July Loop Road, he said. The power lines were not connected to main sources of power, as they were in the Trigo Fire which twice burned a power line to repeaters on Capilla Peak.
Because the southwest has many archeological sites that bulldozers and firefighters could potentially damage, trained archaeologists are sent out to identify possible sites, said James “Jim” Payne, public affairs officer.
“The biggest concern is what the equipment will do to the site,” Payne said.
The unexpected does occur, however.
A fire several years ago at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado exposed an archeological site that no one was aware of, Payne said.
Up to 542 fire personnel from the Southwest Area Incident Management Team extinguished the flames of the Big Spring Fire which was reported by the Capilla Peak Lookout early in the morning of June 24.
Evacuations took place in Tajique, Inlow Baptist Youth Camp, Sherwood Forest subdivision, Forest Valley subdivision, Fourth of July Campground, Forest Service Road 55, N.M. 55 on the north and south side of Tajique and the area west of highway 337 up to mile marker 4, according to a press release from the incident management team.
Leanette Barela, who lives in Tajique, was evacuated twice.
“From our porch we saw ashes falling like snow,” Barela said.
“Last night, I sat there on the porch just crying. It's sad, it really is,” she said June 26.
She said she had spent about $1,000 to move out of Tajique to a new home in McIntosh but had to leave all the boxes in her house.
“I just can't be going through this anymore. When I saw that smoke on the first day, I said, 'Please God, don't let that be another fire,'” Barela said.
Fire officials put a ribbon on her house and turned off her electricity. She has about one month's worth of food in her powerless refrigerator.
Her uncle chose to stay in Tajique.
Officials asked him for his dental records.
“He's up there and they told him that they're not coming back for him. It was awful,” Barela said.
Barela's uncle made it through the fire safe, said James Gonzales another Tajique resident who was evacuated.
Gonzales said he was glad that the American Red Cross paid for him to stay at the Comfort Inn over the weekend.
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