From High Country News:
The aftermath of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fires
Devastation is hard to face, but turning away is harder.
“”The fire — the largest in New Mexico’s history — burned 341,725 acres, and it’s been a significant blow to the remote agricultural communities affected by it and an already precarious way of life.”
I’m surprised no one has opined on the topic; maybe better to say nothing and let that tragic chapter slip into ages?……
I’ll take you up on the comment challenge, Jim. For the Forest Service to say nothing is to let the agency inflicted conflagration slip into the mists of memory and for it to re-write history to pin the inferno on the Park Service.
The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire and the Cerro Pelado Fire in 2022 collectively burned approximately 25% of the land area of the Santa Fe National Forest. However, all acres burned were not within the proclamation boundary and of the 341,471acres charred by the escaped piles of Calf Canyon for which the Chief scapegoats global warming and the dodgy ignition of Las Dispensas seared 171,000 acres of private property, forest and rangelands with the perimeter 20 miles from the national forest boundary. Those 171,000 private acres are 9.5% of the Santa Fe alone.
During the fire, the Chief parachuted into San Miguel County to back slap the forest staff, while stiffing the Member of Congress, the Board of County Commissioners, the Mayor and City Council and the Governor. Reprehensible! The forest supervisor was plucked to the Yates Building, while the district ranger was left to shoulder the mess, a Sisyphean task which contributed to a critical health problem that nearly led to ranger’s death. The forest supervisor is now the deputy regional forester in the Alaska Region, while the district ranger is fortunate to be alive.
The post fire flooding was more than biblical. The Tecolote Creek watershed (featured in the article) produced prodigious volumes of water after each monsoonal rain shower. In July of 2022, an 11’ tall torrent of runoff killed a family who were summer vacationing in their cabin. The family had to sue the United States for reparation, for which the Department of Justice maladroitly moved to dismiss.
The government has a long history of escaped controlled burns notwithstanding their Ivory Soap commercial factoid that 98.84% of burns do not escape. To name a few: the Mack Lake Fire of 1980 ostensibly ignited for the Kirtland’s warbler immolated the town of Mack Lake, MI (23,884 acres; 44 structures lost, entrapment). The Cerro Grande Fire of May 2000 burned the Los Alamos Nuclear Lab and the city of Los Alamos in a 43,000-acre blackening of New Mexico’s Pajarito Plateau including the Santa Fe National Forest and was the driving force for the National Fire Plan. Only two years later the Sanford Canyon Wildfire, 2002 (78,000 acres) at the time this Dixie National Forest failure was the largest escaped fire in government history. The ranger was shamed into retirement while the forest fire staff, the district fire staff and the forest supervisor were all promoted. The Cerro Pelado Fire (Santa Fe National Forest 2022) burned 45,605 acres for which the agency opened a criminal investigation to surreptitiously conceal the global warming induced escape of their failure to extinguish pile burns.
Like the Guy Fawkes poem “remember, remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason plot, I know of no reason why the [Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire] should ever be forgot.”
I don’t know about the others, but Cerro Grande was the Park Service. It might be interesting to compare how many acres each agency prescribed burns and how many escapes leading to extra acres burned happen to each of the federal agencies.
What’s left to be said that hasn’t already been said, Mr. Zornes? My blog has fourteen posts on the fire and most of them have to do with insurance companies denying coverage in the WUI because the land managers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I prefer Joe Reddan’s response, both here and on the recreation shout out. I’m afraid I’m speechless on the punishment (?) of the Santa Fe’s Forest Sup/Region 10 DRF…..
Holy Crap……
The BHNF just torched a bunch of slash piles but if they smolder until April then blow up under a Trump administration what do you expect the political response will look like, Mr. Zornes?
When I’m called Mr. Zornes, I think I’m in trouble for something; call me Jim Z, JZ, or “Cactus Jack”….🤣. As for answering your question, I would hope the violators in question, Forest Sup, FMO, whomever screws up would be fired! Not sent to DC, then on to a DRF position! Fired! It can be done, I’ve seen it done back in the day, before the FS turned into a weak “everybody gets to play”, fearful of rocking the boat, or hurting someone’s feelings shell of its former self….. That!