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