May 28 – The Indios fire in Rio Arriba province grew by about 600 hectares to 4,844 hectares on Tuesday, gaining significant ground in the dry, windy weather.
Crews are focusing on preventive measures, such as forming fire lines and cutting vegetation to keep the fire from spreading, rather than the traditional focus on containment, state and federal fire departments said in a news release Tuesday.
The wildfire, which started on May 19, is burning about 7 miles (11 kilometers) north of Coyote in Rio Arriba County, with 477 people fighting the blaze.
Fire managers said they would track the percentage of essential tasks completed instead of the percentage of containment, as agencies have previously done.
Reporting the amount of work done on site more accurately reflects progress in controlling the spread of the fire and reducing adverse impacts on communities, infrastructure and other assets, they said in a statement.
Forecasts call for the area to remain warm and dry all week, with highs in the low 80s through the weekend, with moderate winds between 10 and 14 mph.
While warm, dry weather isn’t ideal for fighting a wildfire, relatively mild winds are more important in helping crews extinguish the blaze, a National Weather Service forecaster said.
“Wind is the main issue when it comes to the rapid spread of a fire,” said meteorologist Andrew Church.
Fire officials were hoping a thunderstorm moving from Texas into eastern New Mexico on Tuesday would drop some much-needed rain on the fire, but Church said the storm system would largely bypass that area.
“Based on this pattern, the likelihood of them getting a wet rain event on this fire is pretty low,” Church said, adding that Rio Arriba County will remain dry all week and likely most of June until the monsoon season begins.
Crews have contained the fire enough to allow it to spread to areas where it can burn debris and dense vegetation, serving a similar role to a prescribed burn, officials said.
Meanwhile, to the south, the Blue 2 Fire has scorched 7,188 acres since it started on May 16, about eight miles north of Ruidoso.
More than 530 people have been deployed to fight the fire in the White Mountain Wilderness. Ten crews operate 32 fire trucks, six helicopters, six bulldozers and five water tenders.
Neither fire threatens structures. Still, Blue 2 Fire crews are placing sprinklers and hoses around homes for protection.
How long and difficult this wildfire season will be will depend on how quickly the monsoon season arrives and how much rain it brings to New Mexico.
The world is in a neutral phase between an El Nino and La Niña.
The former often causes a wetter than normal winter and the latter means conditions tend to be drier in winter, especially in the south-west, although this has been less the case with weather patterns recently.
During the neutral phase, precipitation is near normal, which in New Mexico means the rainy season begins in July.
Church said climate forecasters likely won’t officially declare a La Niña until mid-summer, although the signature cooling of the Pacific Ocean is underway, with temperatures 2 degrees Celsius below average, Church said.
“I would say it’s there,” he said.
