Friday, June 8, 2012, Cooper turned one year old. In keeping with our tradition, we went down to "No Bones About It" so he could pick out a birthday cookie. They also have doggy cakes that are frozen, but I didn't show him those. He picked out a nice little birthday cake shaped cookie and we also got some of the soft cookie for him and Sadie to share when we got home. We decided to walk up and down the street and do some window shopping in the little stores of Midtown. We noticed some smoke up by the ski area and immediately knew there was a fire! It looked pretty small at the time, but because of where it was burning, I figured that there might some problems heading out for the herding clinic the next day. They will sometimes close various roads because of smoke, so I decided we would leave a little bit earlier just in case we couldn't take the short cut and had to go the longer route.
I got everything ready to go on Friday night. I brushed Cooper (no bath since he would be playing in the dirt). The things that could be loaded into the Jeep were loaded (water, umbrella, chairs, bowl and treats for Cooper, sunscreen for me, etc.) and we went to bed early. We got up very early and left the house at 5:00 Saturday morning. I figured it would take a little over 2 hours to get there and it started at 8, so I had plenty of time.
It was really smoky. Still, we live in a resort area that has had more than its share of forest fires in the past years. Smoke doesn't necessarily mean that the fire is close. So, off we went. We got to the intersection at highway 48 and the police had a roadblock. They said we couldn't go that way. I never thought they would close that road, I thought they might close the road at the next turnoff. Talking to another driver at the road block, I discovered that he had been evacuated from his home about 30 minutes before and he said that he thought homes had burned already. I "could" have turned around and gone a different way around the fire area, but that would have taken at least an hour longer, maybe more. Plus, there was no way of knowing at the time exactly how large the fire was, where it was or how close to the house. So, I just went home.
We had no phone or cell service that first day. The smoke was very thick. The flames looked to be over 100 ft tall and you tell it was moving fast. We had winds of over 50 mph on both Saturday and Sunday which made fighting the fire even harder.
To date over 38,000 acres have burned and the fire is 60% contained. 254 structures have burned (242 commercial and residential buildings and 12 outbuildings). They are still fighting the fire with air tankers and helicopters and on the ground. We had over 2,000 personnel fighting as well as over 200 National Guard members. Most of the people that were evacuated have been allowed to return home. The Red Cross and other organizations are helping those in need.
Fire is very fickle. It will burn one house to the ground, leaving nothing behind but ashes and leave the house next door untouched. This has been a year for records here in New Mexico. We have one fire that has been burning for over a month now that has burned almost 300,000 acres. It is the largest fire in New Mexico history. Our fire here has burned 254 structures, the most in New Mexico history. These are records you don't want to have.
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