Ruidoso fires

To recap my own experience, we began vacationing in Ruidoso in 2012, and rented cabins there several times (we lived in Lubbock), but ended up choosing Cloudcroft to buy a summer home, and then upon spending a summer in Cloudcroft (2016), never went back to Texas. Even then we'd visit Ruidoso often, driving up through the Mescalero reservation; we'd go swimming in the city pool or in Grindstone Lake, or wade in the river in the center of town.

I am glued to the news of fires threatening Ruidoso from both sides, damaging certain buildings and devastating the forests around the town. The first person who died was a musician who was waiting for a ride, but the ride got turned away by first responders and there was no way to contact him to tell him to get out by any means he could. Another person was found this morning just off the road to Alto. But in general this morning there is a complete lack of information. The only article from within twelve hours is the New York Times article; we can expect that to be thorough and well-written but mostly a recap of other articles. The reason more recent news would be helpful is the reports of showers, which make burn scars especially horrible but which in some cases help the firefighters protect the parts that haven't yet burned. All that I assume will come out in later articles and as they start to rebuild the town.

We are basically climate refugees from New Mexico. We lived in the village of Cloudcroft for a few years, enjoying its fog and snow, but then we moved out toward Mayhill for a few more, and enjoyed even more the elk, the deer, the wildlife and the feel of the mountains. But after we were evacuated once it dawned on us that the 30,000 or so acres around us were extremely dry forest, like a tinderbox, and there wasn't much to keep us from losing it all. I was very impressed by the local fire crew and loved them dearly; they were very nice people and they saved my wife's life at one point. But they were no match for a 30,000-acre fire with raging winds, and they knew it; a fire a few years back had taken much of the area around Mayhill and had even encompassed Mayhill itself. These things happen, they are part of life up there, and they are devestating.

One night I was at a performance at the Flying J (I think?), a ranch near Alto that re-enacts the old west for tourists and puts on a good musical show of old cowboy songs; they are respectable, admirable western musicians. In the middle of the show the lead singer gave a little speech, like a witness. I would expect him to go on a little about Jesus Christ as that's not uncommon in a bluegrass show, but instead he spoke a little about growing up in the mountains of Alto and then, one summer, losing it all in a huge fire. This is not the first rodeo for Alto, and it's him, and the road to Alto in general, that I'm thinking about now. Of all the people I met up there it was the musicians that I left part of my heart with.

I can say also that I liked and respected the Mescalero fire crews and police, as they seemed to both know what they were doing and work very well with the rest of ours; when it came to fires everyone stuck together and used the same protocols. It's too early to say whether the Inn of the Mountain Gods, or the Mescalero School will be affected; I have been to the school, and to Grindstone Lake, and to a place along Upper Canyon somewhere and I have not been able to discern exactly what has or has not burned. I know that with the coming of strong rain things will be even more destroyed and this unfortunately is in many cases their entire life. Mine is up here now, in the rain; we chose risk of tornado over fire danger. My wife, being a little anxious, says there's no way she could live with risk of no insurance, let alone risk of being surrounded by 30,000 acres of raging fire, evacuation or not, so we just up and came back to Illinois in 2022

Milepost 8

So a huge chunk of mountain fell onto the highway last week, and things were looking pretty grim. Nobody was hurt, thankfully, but it was about 40 or 50 tons, probably, and I was wondering how the heck they would get it off the road? (see picture in next post). I figured it would be about a month.

I was wrong. The road apparently reopened tonight. My hat's off in tribute to the guys in yellow jackets, the road crews. They apparently know exactly what they're doing.

It's actually a matter of being very methodical; of knowing what it takes and getting the equipment to the site; of communicating very clearly to the people who control traffic, and reroute it through Mescalero; of maximizing the work hours, so that some people actually work at night but basically one thing happens after another, and pretty soon, the rock is out of the way, then they fix the road, and finally they fix the guardrail and the shoulders. It's really quite amazing. But it's Monday night and it seems the road is open. People are driving from Alamo to Cloudcroft.

I have to say, though I am now retired and living in Illinois, that I really respect these guys in yellow jackets. What little I had to do with the volunteer fire departments, they were also quite good at this. You see the problem, you bring the necessary equipment, you apply the right force to the situation, you take care of it. It's impressive.

My hat's off to all of y'all.

A true mountain tale

I wrote this story about living in Sixteen Springs:
A true mountain tale

I am busy these days preparing to move out of the Cloudcroft area. I will miss it. I have especially loved Sixteen Springs. But a new life awaits us in other venues, and we'll be out of here around the first of June. More on that later.

My autobiography & more

http://tlevspress.blogspot.com/2021/09/just-passing-through.html

Prove Me Wrong

The fire at Marblehead Canyon, between Cloudcroft and Alamogordo, they said, was human-caused. Had to be, they said, because it waosn't lightning-caused.

Now I know there is a small community of desert campers who love it out there, way out West Side Road, which comes off south from around High Rolls, and goes along behind those Alamo mountains where it's real wild, and dry. You have to about have a humvee to get back up in there, and when you do, I suppose you are just as likely to light a cigarette as anyone. And just for the record, I don't want to argue with them about the lightning. If they know there was no lightning that day (about a week ago), that is good enough for me.

But here's something they apparently didn't consider, though they could have just called it "human-caused." I think it's possible that that fire was "space-rocket-caused," since a space rocket had taken off from Las Cruces the night before.

The space rocket didn't really make much news. It was private; it was successful; apparently some people went into space, but not far into space, and they came back, and I assume lived to tell the tale. You didn't hear much about how private rocket launches would change our lives out here in the country, or how it was a new age of space travel. Maybe it wasn't very new.

But this is my argument: It would be hard to get that rocket up there, in any situation, without dropping a few sparks, not to mention a few very hot pieces of rocket. Those had to land somewhere. They could land in the White Sands or somewhere out on that missile range and probably nobody would know the difference - in some places vegetation is so sparse that you can catch one bush on fire and the others won't catch; they're too far apart.

But up in Marblehead Canyon, there's enough, now, so that a fire could start and still be burning the next morning. It's dry enough.

And so comes my prediction. We who live out at the end of the road, in a dry forest, with hundreds of miles of dry forest to our sides and edges, might be called upon to pay close attention in the coming years. Space rockets may keep us on our toes. But here's another problem: drones. People are beginning to use them to hunt. Why not? They will be all over this valley as well, and they will provide the hunter pictures of where the deer and elk are, and even do the shooting. The hunter then just has to know how to go out and find them.

What will we do about drones? I have no idea. I'm not even sure what we should do about space rockets. All I can say is, a little more rain wouldn't hurt.