The Cerro Grande Wildfire

Wildfires, though we can't always prevent them, but we can prevent the destruction it does to property. Sometimes, the power of these fires can be beyond the resources of fire fighters.

If you live out in the west, you'll probably realize already that Wildfires are the norm. But it's only in recent events that they have been such a problem and destroying millions of acres of forest and sometimes even destroying entire towns. Though, when some people talk about the worst wildfires, they talk about the ones that destroyed not just a lot of wildland, but also do a tremendous amount of damage and kill a lot of people. How about we talk about a wildfire disaster that's more "neesh".

Because what happened here was that a fire fighting team (of 20 fire fighters) were trying to prevent a fire from starting, by using fire. Yes, that's right. Every several years, a fire fighting team would do what is called a "Control Burn" or "Prescribed Burn" which is clear out several acres of forest that is thick and ripe for a wildfire to occur. This is not an easy task, because the right weather is critical and even a small change in weather can turn the "Prescribed Burn" into a wildfire of its own right. But in New Mexico in 2000, that's exactly what happened and even threatened to destroy not just a nearby town, but also the famous "Los Alamos National Laboratory".

First Established in 1943, the Los Alamos National Laboratory studies in Nuclear Energy usage and even the development of new weapons, and it even stores even some unstable nuclear materials like Plutonium.

If this sounds familiar to you, that;s because I have covered this lab "kinda" in my previous wiki pages. This place is where famous atomic scientist Julius Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists developed the 2 Atomic Bombs; Little Boy and Fat Man.

Okay, let's get on with the disaster.

## The Cerro Grande Wildfire

### The Beginning

The disaster would begin late in the evening on May 4, 2000 when a team of 20 Fire Fighters (who worked for the Bandelier National Monument) were given the go-ahead to start a prescribed burn on the peak of the 10,200 feet high mountain of Cerro Grande which is a part of New Mexico's Jemez mountain range (and wildfires in the US are usually named after the location where they started).

This was supposed to be the first of 2 phases to clear out 1,000 aces of thick wildland from the "Santa Fe National Forest" over the course of 3 days, despite the fact that by the time of the prescribed burn New Mexico was in a drought. But the National Monument's officials would be given a rude awakening the very next morning.

By the morning of May 5, Bandelier officials who were watching the fire see a small fire going beyond the boundaries of their originally planned areas and contact the fire department who flew over the area, as of this point the fire didn't look to be much of a problem. But by the afternoon on the same day, the fire quickly began to grow and can be seen from nearby towns like Los Alamos.

Now, let's take a minute about fires in this part of New Mexico, fires in northern New Mexico are normal, but it's not unusual that these fires can be destructive. In 1977, the Las Mesa fire burned 15,000 acres and even prompted the need to build fire lines in the area (a line of little to no vegetation to prevent the progress of a wildfire) to protect the National Laboratory, in 1996 the lab got a close shave in the form of the Dome fire (which burned 16,500 acres).

### The fire progresses

By May 6, around 60 fire fighters were trying to suppress the fire as they were making new fire lines. Then, they got weather reports regarding on the fire weather, and it wasn't good, the winds are expected to pick up and the humidity was forecasted to be low, a Red Flag Warning (the highest danger for wildfire conditions) was issued, these conditions would rear their ugly head by the afternoon of May 7 and the fire would begin to spread and a very fast rate blowing embers in Frijoles Canyon (Frijoles is Spanish for "Beans") and with the winds coming from the South southwest this would extend the fire right towards Los Alamos.

For the next 2 days, the fire fighters were able to beat back the fire "somewhat" as the weather conditions slightly improved, but alas it would be only temporary as dry, windy conditions would help tip the scales in the Cerro Grande Fire's favor

### A town ablaze

By the morning of May 10, the fire was nearing Los Alamos and with the wind gust to around 50 MPH as the morning wore on, and a mandatory evacuation was issued for Los Alamos by noon. The fire fighters are now faced with difficult challenges, one is to protect the town, the other is to also protect the National Labs as it also stores sensitive nuclear materials, and if any of those materials are heated up by fire, it would be a major loss for the labs.

The Labs were under dire threat of the Cerro grande fire as the day then turned into night. To make matters worse, the town of Los Alamos has a very low water supply, making this challenge even more difficult. By midnight, a mandatory evacuation was issued to the nearby town of White Rock, which caused a huge traffic problem as not only White Rock had evacuees from Los Alamos, but there was only 1 evacuation route from the town. Back at Los Alamos, the fire progressed into Los Alamos and burned over 100 buildings (mostly homes), but as the fire threatened to destroy the town, the fire fighters got the break they desperately needed, Los Alamos' water supply was restored, and the fire fighters were able to contain the fire in town by the afternoon on May 11.

### Aftermath

It would be for a few more days (on May 15) when the residents of Los Alamos were allowed to return to their beloved town, and when they did they were in shock and disbelief to see their homes consumed by the fire. Yet, fire fighters would continue to fight the Cerro Grande fire and by June 6 the fire fighters where they were able to contain the fire, but it wouldn't be until July 20 when the fire was finally put out.

In total, the Cerro Grande fire burned for over 2 months, and it burned around 48,000 acres of wildland (even reaching as far north as the Santa Clara reserve for the Pueblo Native Americans) and the damage that it had done was over $1 Billion (over $1.5 Billion in today's money) it also destroyed over 280 buildings (235 of them being people's homes).

But there's a few silver linings to this disaster, not only were there no deaths involved, but the fire fighters also managed to protect the areas of the National Laboratory where it stored nuclear materials.

But alas, the Cerro Grande fire has left its mark on history. In the times immediately after the disaster, the Bandelier National Monument was under scrutiny as many resident of Los Alamos held the Monument responsible for the fire, and many resident of Los Alamos left the town rather than rebuild.

For the next 11 years, the Cerro Grande fire remained the largest in New Mexico's history, that is until in June of 2011 when the Los Conchas fire occurred as it burned over 150,000 acres of forest and destroyed 112 buildings (63 of them homes) and also threatening Los Alamos and its Labs. A year later, the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire occurred in the southern part of New Mexico and was twice as big as the Los Conchas (burning nearly 300,000 acres). But the Cerro Grande remains the worst wildfire in the history of New Mexico.

That will be all for this page. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis too. Until Next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.