Given the nature of the fire and the constraints of money, I believe the fire fighters did all that could be done. The problem is the way their managers presented themselves. They showed the effects of years of budget cutting and politics that drives away all but the most malleable.
The lack of money is most pernicious. It has converted the discovery that fire is part of the natural cycle of prairies and forests into a rationale for not doing things unless capital assets are threatened. Last year’s South Fork Fire was in rugged territory northwest of Española, and, once the perimeters were contained, it was left to burn itself out. Later, the Forest Service claimed it as a success because prior controlled burns stopped the fire from reaching the FAA control towers on Cerro Pelon Hill.
The fact that lingering smoke and ash could affect the lives of people 15 miles away in the valley was not a quantified into a metric. When questions are raised about monitoring air and water quality, they’re perceived as public relations problems for Los Alamos National Laboratory, which has an already existing audience of skeptics. If any monitoring gets done, it must establish that nothing dangerous escaped from the hill. That really isn’t the question. Most of us aren’t that paranoid about the lab. The question has been and remains, what’s coming from the fire.
The fact LANL was involved distorted many priorities, because people in Los Alamos never feel enough resources are devoted to their security. It meant the first day, when the fire spread towards Cochiti, bureaucrats were concerned with the safety of lab property. It meant a few days later, when the fire escaped to the north, bureaucrats were too involved assuring lab executives and city officials to listen to Santa Clara.
There was always the feeling there wasn’t enough money, that decisions were being made within constraints. It’s unfortunate the Willow fire was still threatening southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico when our fire began. Fatigue coupled with the already mentioned hope this wasn’t another Cerro Grande didn’t help. On June 30, the southern fire was 95% contained and still required 991 people. Our fire was only 3% contained, but only had 210 more people.
While the number rose well over 2,000 in July, after the fire was out of control in the northern canyons, there never were the numbers here, when other fires were also burning, as there had been in Arizona, early in the season, when John McCain and other politicians were making highly publicized visits.
Honesty would have helped. No matter how much money is available, there’s a limit to how many highly trained, seasonal workers should exist. It can never be enough for the worst case. But such realistic appraisals are never made public. The pretense that everything possible is being done breeds more anger than the truth would have. However the first is hidden even if malignant, while the second can be public and volatile.
While timidity and the hope this wasn’t another bad fire characterized the first responses, the serious problems in credibility began when senior managers arrived. Every institution has a gap between the skills needed to carry out day to day operations, and those needed to deal with outside decision makers, bankers and Wall Street analysts for corporations, Congress for government agencies. The difference can only be more extreme with a group like the Forest Service where the basic mission requires leaving home for extended periods to work out doors in dangerous conditions, but managers must be desk people.
There was a marked change in the reports posted on the local web site before and after the fire status was elevated. Before, the reports focused on the fire, and what people had done to combat it. We were told if crowning was occurring or if fire behavior was extreme. We were able to understand the red lines at sunset and smoke.
After senior managers arrived, the focus became the daily action plans for the management team, especially the public meetings they were holding in Cochiti and Los Alamos. The audience became the people who controlled money and promotions, and secondarily reporters for Albuquerque television stations who didn’t need to drive farther north than Los Alamos. This became a story about the Dixon Apple Orchard whose customers live in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
One small example of the use of officially important facts instead of useful information is the way the Forest Service website identified the materials that were fueling the fire. For the South Fork Fire, it had said it was Ponderosa pine; for the Donaldson Fire, that broke out while this fire was active, it said it was Jjuniper-Piñon grasslands. For this one, it said: “10 Timber (litter and understory) FM8 and FM10."
These terms are the ones used by fire fighters to assess the potential dangers a fire poses, and only have meaning to supervisors releasing resources. Certain codes no doubt justify more danger and, therefore, more money. They mean nothing to the rest of us.
While fighting the fire requires highly skilled individuals usually from native, rural or working class backgrounds, much of the support work can be done by the educated. While local men were hired to run the dozers that created the fire lines, archaeologists were hired to direct them away from important sites. It took time for the fire service to allow representatives from the pueblos to advise them. The outside experts and the locals had different interests, the one in the past, the other the present.
Whenever opportunities exist for someone other than emergency workers, avenues for corruption and political influence follow. Remediation after the fire is ripe for exploitation. While the Cerro Grande fire publicized its attempts to give school children native seeds to plant near town, this time aerial crews are spreading cereal barley, slender wheatgrass and little blue stem.
According to William Dick-Peddie, little bluestem is widespread in Juniper-Piñon woodlands and savannahs, but it’s western wheatgrass that’s found in this area, not slender. Barley isn’t mentioned. Likewise, little bluestem is found in various lower montane Ponderosa pine environments, but not wheatgrass or barley.
There have been many failures here and in Europe with attempts to immediately sow indigenous seeds. Barley may in fact grow more quickly than other plants, and thereby anchor the soil so nature can replace it in time. To one who doesn’t know, this list suggests the influence of those who want to sell what’s available for a wide range of situations, not what’s appropriate for this particular one. It’s those kind of suspicions, which develop when useful information like the nature of the fire fuel is not made available, that lead to distrust and the leap to conspiratorial thinking.
More interesting, the Burned Area Emergency Response team can only work with federal land. They can only hope their activities will “positively influence adjacent lands under private, state, tribal, pueblo and government ownership.” Fortunately, the fire fighters have no such constraint, although I wonder how much that also influenced their prioritizing the lab over the pueblos.
So, those of us who are staring at Santa Clara land are condemned to see burned out mountains for decades, for it will take that long for nature to fully recover. There will be no reforestation or other remedial efforts unless the pueblo diverts money intended to expand the casinos that support its people.
The effects of this are already evident. Dixon’s Apple Orchard has been the most vocal about having to fight the ash polluted runoff by itself, as it negotiates its way through government agreements. It’s planted on state trust land leased from the State Land Office.
Less publicity is given to run off elsewhere which is just as visible when you drive north out of Española.
Even in areas that are blocked by ridges from the direct run off air born ash fell.
On my side of the river, August rains revealed soot had also fallen here and suggested my concerns about air quality had been legitimate.
When conscientious people are faced with impossible situations, they’re told to break problems into smaller units which can be solved. So instead of putting out a fire, they can contain it and stage a “Mission Accomplished” event and go on, leaving the base problem unsolved.
So, as high level managers were looking for an exit strategy for themselves from a difficult wildfire, they said the fire was 100% contained and that “transition to the local agency is scheduled for August 3.”
In the fine print they added, “This will be the last report on this fire until the fire is declared controlled.” Now, what in Orwellian bureaucratese is the difference between contained and controlled?
Are we controlled yet? Is the fire out? There are have been no further postings.
I know because I looked when steam was rising from the canyons after we finally got some rain.
When I asked neighbors or people in Santa Fe if the fire was finally extinguished, they shrugged and said “I thought it was out months ago.”
Mission Accomplished
...if the mission was to isolate the curious and leave them questioning the role of government, even when it was as successful as it could be.
Pictures were all were taken after August 3 when senior managers declared the fire 100% contained.
Picture 1. 11 August 2011, about 6:45pm, ash, smoke or steam rising from the canyons between the ridges as warm air meets cooling air before sun down.
Picture 2. 20 August 2011, about 7am, bare area within the green dotted mountains behind the badlands.
Picture 3. 28 August 2011, about 4:10pm, arroyo north of Española, possibly Rio de Oso, looking upstream at bottom land mud stained by soot and ash.
Picture 4. 31 August 2011, about 9:15am, arroyo on main road through San Ildefonso land, possibly Garcia Canyon, looking downstream at grey bottom land.
Picture 5. 5 September 2011, about 9:25am, road towards the local arroyo where soot amassed into rivulets during a serious rain.
Picture 6. 3 September 2011, about 5:30pm, smoke or steam rising after a storm.
Notes:
Dick-Peddie, William A. New Mexico Vegetation, 1993.
Dyson, Stuart. “Flooding Becomes Real at Fire-Scarred Apple Orchard,” KOB website, 29 July 2011.
Florida Forest Service. Fire Risk Assessment System (FRAS) Training Student Reference Text, prepared by Space Imaging Solutions, 2002.
United States Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. Las Conchas BAER Treatment Update, 24 July 2011.
_____. Las Conchas Fire Update, 3 August 2011.
_____. “USDA Forest Service Wildfire Risk Reduction Success Stories: South Fork Fire.”
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