Surrounded by wildfires. Starting to get a little nervous!
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:23 am
We've been suffering THICK smoke and some ash fall for about 3 or 4 days now here in Milan/Grants area of New Mexico. There are some NASTY wildfires burning close by. One is a 136 square mile or 86,000 ACRES of fire on the Az/Nm border almost dead center, east side. That's about 125-150 miles away. It's by Alpine, Az. It's at 50% containment but that's DOWN from what it was and dropping. Over 800 firefighters fighting a losing battle. They are losing ground FAST.
The second hot one is by Portal ,Az on our SW border ,down at the corner. It's about 40,000 acres and ZERO percent containment at this point. It's absolutely RAGING and they're evacuating towns at both fires now.
BOTH of these monsters are Stage 1 fires, the worst kind.
We are also feeling, believe it or not, the HEAT from these fires in humidity and mugginess. The smoke is so thick here, it's choking everything. I can't see the 10,000 foot plus mountain only a few miles away. It's completely blocked out as are the Zuni mountains to my immediate west of my place. Mt. Taylor is the tallest mountain in NM and it's unseeable from a few miles away right now!!
We have three stage two wildfires going in New Mexico atm.
One 25 miles north of Silver City, NM and to the SW of us.
Two to our NE up in the NE corner of the state. One is 4 miles E of Penasco,NM and another is 20 NE of Raton, NM.
So, we are LITERALLY surrounded by fire at this point. It's been VERY, VERY dry here this year. Usually by the end of May we feel like Seattle must feel year round. Like soaked muskrats. We've not had ONE good rain shower this year...
The winds are fueling these fires on the AZ/NM border and pushing them towards us. They're pulling firefighters from HERE (as in my town) now to go fight them. I'm not one to get nervous usually, but this is starting to make me that way....
Uploading a video to YouTube now. Will post link when done.
Here's a link to an article and another link to a "Firemap". You'll see what that is when you get there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/ ... 8548.shtml
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/#
The second hot one is by Portal ,Az on our SW border ,down at the corner. It's about 40,000 acres and ZERO percent containment at this point. It's absolutely RAGING and they're evacuating towns at both fires now.
BOTH of these monsters are Stage 1 fires, the worst kind.
We are also feeling, believe it or not, the HEAT from these fires in humidity and mugginess. The smoke is so thick here, it's choking everything. I can't see the 10,000 foot plus mountain only a few miles away. It's completely blocked out as are the Zuni mountains to my immediate west of my place. Mt. Taylor is the tallest mountain in NM and it's unseeable from a few miles away right now!!
We have three stage two wildfires going in New Mexico atm.
One 25 miles north of Silver City, NM and to the SW of us.
Two to our NE up in the NE corner of the state. One is 4 miles E of Penasco,NM and another is 20 NE of Raton, NM.
So, we are LITERALLY surrounded by fire at this point. It's been VERY, VERY dry here this year. Usually by the end of May we feel like Seattle must feel year round. Like soaked muskrats. We've not had ONE good rain shower this year...
The winds are fueling these fires on the AZ/NM border and pushing them towards us. They're pulling firefighters from HERE (as in my town) now to go fight them. I'm not one to get nervous usually, but this is starting to make me that way....
Uploading a video to YouTube now. Will post link when done.
Here's a link to an article and another link to a "Firemap". You'll see what that is when you get there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/ ... 8548.shtml
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/#
