Fire Breaks Loose

Fire is a wily beast.

Anyone who dismisses that as too anthropomorphic risks being blinded to the dynamics of wind and flame by his or her material view of the universe.

On Sunday the Las Conchas fire had exploded in the Bandelier National Monument. It quickly spread to 60,740 acres, then seemed to slow down. In the next three days it grew another 36,982 acres to 92,722 acres, a sixth the pace.

To the south where it had threatened Cochiti it encountered lighter fuels that slaked its appetite. To the north it was hedged by the grassy remains of the Cerro Grande fire of 2000. It seemed content going west.

At noon on Thursday, June 30, the Los Alamos fire chief said “We’re starting to turn the corner on this fire.” The fire service’s information officer had already assured people that “fire is a science,” that a fire behaviorist could study the way a fire behaves and predict what it would do. There were even hopes it would rain.

Driving home the sky was dark and stormy. The winds were picking up. When I turned into my valley, I left the clouds behind, but I could see a rainbow to the east from whence I’d just come.



To the west there was strong plume of pink smoke rising from the Jemez.

While we were being lulled by pronouncements that the fire was held at bay at the borders of the lab, it had been inching north unheralded. When you looked at the infrared map from that morning, you could see it had entered Santa Clara land where it was already even with the scar’s northern tip.

Just as it moved north of the limiting old fire bed, the winds picked up.

While I was at work, the pueblo governor had declared a state of emergency. The fire had burned 6,000 acres in the watershed, all the land in the headwaters of the Santa Clara creek that feeds their irrigation system.



The winds continued to rise. The sun turned red. The pink plume turned dark grey, The smoke rising above turned orange in the reflection of the sun.

Then the sky grew dark. The lights of the gas station at the base of the road that leads to Puye cliffs and Santa Clara canyon came on to the right of my neighbor’s Siberian elm.

The winds were howling about the house. Dots of orange appeared above a ridge. Then the dots merged into a broad U-shaped line with a blur of red to the north where I could see shadows of bare tree trunks.



When I woke at midnight, the winds had stopped. The stars were out. The big dipper hung off the west end of the porch. Los Alamos was a white line, either from the fire or lights in town. The Santa Clara fire was a long static red line, no longer pulsing.

When I woke again at 5:45, the dew had fallen. The mountains were gone. There were no signs of smoke or fire. A half hour later, the lights of the gas station are out. The sandstone cliffs were etched in the sun. Those who had slept through the night woke reassured man could master the universe.

Notes:
Baca, Joe. Las Conchas Fire Burns More Than 6,000 acres of Santa Clara Pueblo Land,” 30 June 2011 press release.

Pitassi, Brad. United States National Forest Service, Southwest Area Type I Incident Management Team information officer. Quoted by Staci Matlock, “Los Alamos Residents Flee Growing Las Conchas Fire,” Santa Fe’s The New Mexican, 27 June 2011.

Tucker, Doug, Los Alamos fire chief. Quoted by Carol A. Clark, “Fire Battle Begins to Turn Corner,” Los Alamos Monitor, 30 June 2011.

United States National Forest Service. “Las Conchas Progression” map, 30 June 2011.

Picture 1. Smoke from the Santa Clara fire, 30 June 2011 about 7:56pm; just to the right of the Siberian elm in the center is the gas station at the base of the road to Puye cliffs.

Picture 2: Rainbow to the east, 30 June 2011 about 6:24pm.

Picture 3: Smoke from the Santa Clara fire, 30 June 2011 about 6:25pm, where the rainbow as shining to the east.

Picture 4: Santa Clara fire, 30 June 2011 about 9:19pm; the red blur is above the gas station. With the high winds and slow shutter speed, it was impossible to get a picture that doesn’t have some camera movement.
system.

When Fire Becomes Routine

Wednesday, June 29, the fire had settled into a routine. The early mornings were hazy, the afternoons were stormy, the sunsets were unusual, the nights were clear enough to see the big dipper from my back porch.

The fire was measured out in daily press briefings, infrared maps of its extent and NASA photographs of its smoke. County officials jostled for their minute of fame. The lab wanted to hunker down, but the new media kept it alert.

Since the last fire, every person who comes on site has a cell phone with a camera and the ability to send instant impressions to friends. I’m sure in the more secure areas there are still many restrictions about the use of such devices, but in other areas where the fire threatened people were probably unencumbered.

I suspect the people in the area didn’t just include the essential LANL (or LANS as its now called) personnel, but the local backhoe drivers and others hired by the lab or county to dig all those defenses they’re bragging about. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone has an opinion.



Paranoia about the lab resurfaced. The Santa Fe newspaper reported the fire “was burning three miles from Area G, where barrels of radioactive waste are stored.” Those became corroding barrels by the time I talked to deliveryman in the city yesterday afternoon.

Others believed the fire was on lab grounds, despite the disclaimers.

The lab responded with a press release describing its efforts to monitor the air. No one, or not many anyway, feared the current nuclear inventory. People have always been much more concerned about what was dumped in the late 1940's and early 1950's before there were procedures to follow, or avoid.

They reported their preliminary samples “show no radioactive materials from Laboratory operations or legacy waste in smoke from the Las Conchas fire.”

Unfortunately, many will remain unconvinced. They’ve learned from things like the beryllium exposure that information that carries the potential for high liabilities is not made public.

Who believes they would tell us about anything less than a serious release? Who thinks it matters that the radioactive profile of the lab’s smoke is not different than that in the area, since most of the smoke is from the same source?

But then, most of us know this and recognize it as the price we pay for the pleasures of living in this part of the country. If it comes it will be horrendous. Otherwise, as they say, less serious than smoking cigarettes, hard drinking or doing drugs.

It’s just another hobby horse, another familiar response to crisis, trotted out with all the others.



Reporters unable to actually report on the fire fell back on the routine. They quoted the fire chief who saw the flames Sunday and thought “Oh my god, here we go again.” They talked to people in Los Alamos who were throwing out flammable materials or watering the lawn, as if either would stop a fire if it reached the town. But familiar activities are soothing.

Another reporter visited an evacuation center in Española to find an elderly woman who said “the fire was an act of God.” Her comments were posted on You Tube with the implication that this was God’s punishment.

No one checked. Her husband, Casey, is a retired lab technician who worked with the Boy Scouts for years on environmental projects. Every year he walks to Chimayó as an act of penance.

If they wanted to find panic instead of stoicism, they could have talked to my boss’s mother who left Cochiti after a spot fire burned a few miles from her house Sunday night.

If they wanted frustration, they could have talked to the Santa Clara who felt the dangers to their lands weren’t being taken seriously.

But those interviews would have broken the routines the reporters used to lull themselves into believing they are doing their jobs.

When a fire becomes routine, the danger is people’s routines are revived to shield them from the simmering crisis.

Notes:
Los Alamos National Laboratory. “No Wildfire on Laboratory Property; Active Air Monitoring Underway,” npsnmfireinfo website, 29 June 2011.

Los Angeles Times. “Miracle Of The Mud,” 16 April 1995, on Casey Stevens.

Stevens, Virginia. Quoted by KOB TV, “Los Alamos Evacuee: Fire act of God,” 28 June 2011.

Tucker, Doug. Quoted by Staci Matlock, “Los Alamos Residents Flee Growing Las Conchas Fire,” The New Mexican, 27 June 2011.

Top picture: Locust trees blowing in the wind to the east, June 29 about 8:18pm.

Middle picture: Black Mesa in front of an invisible Los Alamos, June 29 about 8:58am.

Bottom picture: Black Mesa with the trail of smoke that leads back to the fire, June 29 about 8:17pm.

Dislocations

By Tuesday, June 28, the fire had ceased to exist as a living presence. It was known only by its spoor.

The smoke woke me around 3:30 in the morning. It apparently collects under the southwest facing back porch roof, then gets trapped by the fence to the southeast. As I tried to get back to sleep without an air conditioner to purify the air, I was wondering, should I go sit in the car with the air on, should I try to find a motel room, is there an evacuation site still open?

When I woke again, the mountains to the west were lost in a haze, but it was clear to the east.

Los Alamos was still a dim presence when I left for work around 9:30. I thought I could just see a white line divided into two parts where I assumed new smoke was rising.



In Santa Fe, the fire was known only by its refugees, the ones who had to leave Los Alamos yesterday. The man who delivered the bottled water was staying in Truches where the morning was cold.

At the bank the teller who’s a volunteer fireman wasn’t there. His place was taken by someone from the Los Alamos branch. Everyone was friendly, but it took three to figure out where the check orders were kept for pick-up.

The drive home was more dramatic than yesterday. Another storm was coming, but the grey was replaced by an overall wash of brown. Mountains and lower geographic features were blurs. Over that was a layer of gray that was shaped like a storm, but could be more smoke. To the west, there was a rosy hue which could be either the fire or the sun.



Everything was a shadow of itself.

The storm never came. The smell of smoke increased. The sun couldn’t break through the haze of pastel chalk.

I made up the bed in the spare bedroom but still woke at 11:45, my nose too dry to sleep. The sky was clear, the stars were visible as were the lights of the Santa Clara gas station across the river.

Still everything was dislocated. The mesa was a blur, the warning lights of Los Alamos invisible. Sleep only came when my nose cleared.

Top picture: The invisible Los Alamos behind the Black Mesa, June 28 about 7:43pm.

Middle picture the invisible Los Alamos behind a leg of the Black Mesa with a hint of smoke to the east (left), June 28 about 9:26am.

Bottom picture: The Black Mesa in front of invisible mountains, June 28 about 6:28pm.

The Fire Loses Reality

Monday, June 27, I lost complete touch with the fire as it disappeared behind a fog of smoke and a dearth of information.

It wasn’t just the closing of the lab and the evacuation of Los Alamos that threw me back to the emotions of the Cerro Grande fire. It was also the combination of bureaucratic timidity and media incompetence that meant no information.

Last time, Washington politicians arrived. Whenever there was a press conference, the locals came out for the pictures, then scurried after the retreating bigger wigs. They had no time for their constituents, only for their own networking opportunities.

The major networks sent crews. The local reporters, hoping to be the next Dan Rather, hung around them, hoping for a bit of notice that could translate into a contract that might mean a better job. They were too intent on currying favor to actually cultivate sources who might tell them about the fire.

The local reporters who actually tried to cover the story around the barriers set by the lab were suspended. One had the temerity of using his press pass to bring family members into the evacuated town to record their responses to seeing their destroyed home. This was considered an abuse of power to favor cronies.

There was one, it may have been the same, who reported more of the rumors that were swirling outside the sterile press releases. That voice too disappeared.

Now the forest service blog has been usurped. It carries all the official press releases and describes the strategies (not the actions) of the fire fighting managers. The fire is reduced to a daily map showing its extent. It no longer is described as active or inactive, running or crowning or whatever else we’ve learned fires do.

And people I talk to complain. They don’t know what’s going on. They can’t connect the geographic references used by the media with the landmarks they know. The press is doing nothing but repeating abstracts of press releases.

And, if you live in Santa Fe, instead of down in the valley, you can’t see anything either. All you know if your throat is sore, your eyes gummy. There’s a layer of ash and charred pine needles in the yard. The sun is red, the mountains are gone. But nothing can be learned.

I grew so restive that afternoon I fled the office at 2:30 and headed north.

The sky are grey, visibility limited. You could see nothing of the fire. It felt like I was rushing to get home before a snow storm closed the road. When I made the turn west towards my house and the fire, suddenly the sky are bluer, the distance clearer.

Topography is everything here. Running parallel to the road north of Pojoaque is a geologic formation, a monocline, that’s barely visible from the road and carries a name as obscure as the many others used on maps that have been puzzling people trying to learn where the fire it.

Unnamed and unseen by most, it’s still enough to channel the weather, to keep rain away from the dry area to the east. For a storm indeed was passing through.

Around 4:40 I began to feel a few sprinkles, could see lightening to the west of the Black Mesa. Then the winds resumed and I could smell the smoke. Within twenty minutes the sounds of thunder had moved north, there was only water pocked sand in the drive.



By 6:15 the smoke was creeping out of Los Alamos, a heavy brown presence. Beneath, the grass turned dark gold. To the north, the sun turned red. The air was still.



The smoke continued to move to form an arch over my head that would turn into a skull cap when the light faded.

The sun sank behind the Jemez turning the sky red with its own reflection, more brilliant than the fire.

Then darkness. South towards Los Alamos there seemed to a narrow white line. It seemed to pulse like the northern lights, but that could have been an affect created by smoke distorting my view.

I could no longer tell mirages from reflections from reality.

Top picture: Sun setting in the Jemez, June 27 about 8:15pm.

Middle picture: Smoke to the east, June 27 about 6:55pm.

Bottom picture: The grass to the east under the cap of smoke, June 27 about 7:48pm.

The Clarity of Fire

Sunday, June 26, I walked southwest into an arroyo between my house and the Black Mesa. The heat had built up so much in the past week, when the thermometer read 93 at 6pm, that the heat from the clay and sand soil burned through my shoes. For the first time it was uncomfortable to walk on what had become shallow dunes.

I also walked a quarter mile down the road to the northeast where the Pacheco Canyon fire was visible. There’s a break in the ridges of clay and gravel, and it looks like a flood might once have broken through. The area where I was standing is a flat, grassy prickly pear cactus field that edges another arroyo.

It was a normal fire morning.

The winds increased about noon. A few weeks ago I bought a portable wind gauge to learn exactly how severe they were when the locust and tamarix began to twist. Whatever it was designed for, it doesn’t work in New Mexico. I have no idea how severe they were, only that they’ve been much worse this month.

Around two I took a nap. When I awoke, the light coming through the east window of my bedroom had changed. The grass, usually brown, was silver.



I grabbed my camera to try to photograph the effects of light. When I couldn’t see enough grass from my back porch, I started to walk around the house.

That’s when I saw the huge mushroom cloud behind the Black Mesa. It looked like everyone’s worst fears of what could come from Los Alamos.

The New Mexico fire website, nmfireinfo.wordpress.com, said a fire had broken out behind the lab in the Bandelier National Forest. It didn’t have to tell me it was the most powerful fire we’ve seen - and in the 20 years I’ve lived here, they have been three large fires around Bandelier: the Dome Fire of 1996, the Cerro Grande fire of 2000, and this one. There was also one, the La Mesa, in 1977.

I talked to someone yesterday who lives in Los Alamos. He said he when we went into the local hardware store Sunday he saw the first wisps of smoke. When he came out, about 15 minutes later, the fire had grown huge.

At the time officials said the fire was 3,000 acres. When I went to bed they said 6,000 to 9,000 acres. It took the Pacheco Canyon fire a week to reach that size.

When I looked the next morning, they said it was 43,000 acres, much of it to the south and east of the hot spots near Las Conchas. It had taken the Cerro Grande fire two weeks to cover that much land.

One difference was weather. The Cerro Grande fire resulted from a controlled burn begun on May 4, in the spring of a relatively normal year, when the winds are high. This is early summer in the year of a severe drought when high winds have persisted longer than usual.

The other difference was that this fire was more visible than the Cerro Grande. The plume grew, fading to grey in the east where it mixed with whatever smoke was rising from Pacheco Canyon. To the west the edge was gilded by the sun. To the north, the sky was still clear.

When the sun went down, spots of orange became visible. They sometimes merged into a line, sometimes disappeared. Eventually the red warning lights around Los Alamos appeared below and in front of the ridge line of fire.

From where I stood on my back porch I didn’t know if I was actually seeing the fire, or just its reflection in the clouds.


On the one hand there was a sense of great clarity. For much of the day, the smoke had some form. In the night, it was reduced to a thin line of orange. Everything was visible, even if it was only effects of light and smoke I was seeing.

On the other hand there was a feeling no one yet knows what’s going on - that clarity will come in the morning after they’ve made their reconnaissance flights. Then the freefall will be stabilized.

But for now, any human in the area knew there was a fire and had a fairly good idea where it was. The rest was mystery.

Top picture: Las Conchas fire over the Black Mesa, June 26, around 4:46pm.

Middle picture: View to the east, June 26, around 4:43pm.

Bottom picture: Las Conchas fire through the lilacs, June 26, around 8:09pm.