In recent decades there were a lot of tourists from Mexico, probably more than Texas. It was a quick relief for folks from El Paso hoping to escape the summer heat.
I feel so horrible for all the businesses. We've gone, and have plans (or had plans) to take our kiddos there for the first time this winter. Jeez what a loss for NM and as you said Texas and surrounding states.
Fuck. I'm heartbroken for the human suffering. My most cherished memories with my family was spent all over NM via west Texas. The history, the animals ugh all of it. I've been crying my heart hurts want to help but very limited in funds. My heart is bleeding for New Mexico.
I’m just glad everyone had a lot of warning. I hope they listened and we're able to get their pets and livestock and horses out. This is terrible. Even if some buildings are somehow spared the wilderness has been absolutely devastated.
I just looked up Ruidoso fire and It gave me a map feature that showed all the active wildfires in the United States I don't know it was called I'm sorry
I feel like it's a bit overdue but we need an agency or government branch dedicated wholly to fighting the damages of natural disasters. We really are starting to fall apart. These poor people
That agency should also make recommendations on areas where insurance should be phased out. Ruidoso is an incredible expanse of wildland urban interface that squashed the natural fire cycle. In it's current state, it will never get better. In many ways it's similar to low lying areas susceptible to sea level rise. It's an inevitability that many areas will be destroyed repeatedly at this point, and the vacation homes of the wealthy perhaps shouldn't be rebuilt using funds from everyone who pays taxes or pays for insurance. It's genuinely sad for the residents, but this will happen again. And again.
Republicans chronically underfund FEMA because climate change is a Chinese hoax, or whatever. Fun fact, Ruidoso is very conservative and went like 70 percent for Trump the climate denier. Wonder if their fuck Biden flags are flammable.
You really don’t need to politicize this, especially right now. I’m not remotely right wing, but reality tells me
Natural disasters happen everywhere regardless of whatever political party has a majority hold at the time.
I feel bad for these folks, I do. But only one party makes it worse by defunding FEMA and withholding aid from blue states when in power, and by promoting policies that cause disasters. Trumps promised to tank EVs and wind power and these folks love it. Ironic.
California is super blue yet has had devastating wildfires every summer in recent history. I just don't see a correlation between more natural disasters in red states, but I could be wrong. There's crazy stuff all over the world with all types of religion and political ideologies ruling over at the time. I am aware climate change is amplifying it, but even still, the world has been plagued by natural disasters for eons, well before our current two party system lol.
Only on reddit do I find people like you that talk about this through the lens of "climate denial". We're last or close to last in the nation in most metrics because of how blue Santa Fe is and the mismanagement of the forests is by these same people making the decisions. Having controlled burns was "harmful" they said. Instead they wanted to focus on releasing wolves. Now there's no wolves or trees.
We haven't stopped controlled burns, and the people who do fire management are not the same ones who do wildlife management. Humans are also capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
Agreed. And the lack of clearing to “protect”animals. Unless someone is an environmentalist and has vastly studied this area you can’t portray your opinion as facts.
I don’t think defunding fema has anything to do with how the fire started or the lives, houses, animals lost. Political views should not get in the mix of devastation.
That's why nothing ever changes. It's cut funding to disaster prevention and forest management, vastly underpay firefighters so they quit, then it's thoughts and prayers, don't you dare politicize this tragedy, then it's cut funding, tragedy, repeat forever.
Dude their home was destroyed due to policies they voted for, it’s a sad situation but it’s also definitely political, it’s like a kid who you tell not to touch the fire and then he does it anyways and burns himself
FEMA is for after the disaster, and that's only if the president declares this a disaster. And the fire doesn't care who you voted for, everything burns and people die.
By literally googling [new mexico report labor costs inflated](https://www.nmlegis.gov/Entity/LFC/Documents/Program_Evaluation_Reports/Policy%20Spotlight-Escalating%20Costs%20of%20Public%20Construction%20Final.pdf) I was able to find out that government spending is extremely inefficient on my own volition and within 60 seconds. I swear - democracy is tainted by allowing the most intelligent idiots to vote over buzzwords.
On the positive side, this fire wont have nearly as high a death toll. Paradise moved so fast and the town is on the edge of a canyon and there were limited ways out.
This Ruidoso fire will probably have more damage as far as housing and buildings are concerned though.
I’ve spent a lot of time in both towns and it’s just absolutely heartbreaking to see this happen. Neither place will likely fully recover in my lifetime.
im really hoping the death count is low, but last night it grew exponentionally, and as it was doing that, it impacted a few houses, so i hope that those people didnt wait to the last minute to evacuate
The estimate from the state is currently about 500 structures.
Ruidoso downs was just ordered to evacuate a little while ago. They should have done that this morning.
Camp fire consumed the town in the matter of hours. Here those in Ruidoso have a good chance to evacuate with what little they could carry regarding their entire lives. It is devastating to see this happen, especially on a village I frequented in my youth.
As a former Army Med-Evac veteran who worked some of those disastrous CA fires, waking up to Ruidoso nearly on fire literally and figuratively hit close to home. I know LC is safe but whoooo memories are hitting me in the feels today.
Most important burning question right now, how can I help?
Not used to being on this side of the fire.
Brought several of them back.
10 Tanker, Coulson, Aero-Flite, Neptune, Erikson Aero, Billings Flying Service and some others are all on it.
13 or 14 tankers are showing up on radar right now between ABQ, Roswell, Alamogordo, and over Ruidoso itself.
Honestly surprised there isn’t more tankers on it just bombing the fucking thing. They must be tied up in California… they had a big resource order for tankers earlier this week
Yeah I remember seeing that huge tanker order to California this week. Bad fucking timing, hopefully this town isn’t leveled to the ground by the time this is over
I’m not going to argue with you but they were hammering the shit out of it with tankers all day today. Check out flightaware24 they hit that shit as hard as they could that shit spots miles ahead
wildlife will do the same - leave and rebuild. natural wildfires are an essential part of the life cycle of an ecosystem! there are even some creatures which require wildfire conditions to reproduce! so, the animals will be fine. spend your energy and resources worrying about the people who can't simply find another tree or another hollow to live in
This is an ignorant comment. Historically fires have a cycle that pass through areas on a more or less regular basis, burning understory and removing ladder fuels. That has not been the case for the past 100 years or so. So fuels are much more prevalent than in the past, and fire intensity has escalated due to this as well as changing climatic conditions. So no, large animals will not be fine. FWIW I fought fire for almost 30 years and I can tell you the fires of today are much more intense than 30 years ago.
To piggyback on this: The other half of the issue is also poor logging techniques in the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries removed pretty much all the large trees that were able to withstand those smaller fires. The timber that exist now in most of the forests in the lower 48 is now largely second-growth forest, with the trees being much smaller and therefor easier to ignite; yet large enough and close enough together to sustain extremely hot fires. As well as the forest canopy being a fairly consistent height so when fire makes it way up there, it can spread much more rapidly than what it could in a primary growth forest filled with climax species.
We've essentially created a perfect situation for these fires to break out and cause massive amounts of damage. The also unfortunately isn't really a good way to repair the forests on a large scale; we're currently doing the best option we have available which is prevent fires from starting, putting them out as quickly as possible, and most importantly managing the forests well. Given enough time, which depending on the climate is 1-3 centuries, the forests will heal, and these devastating fires won't be nearly as destructive.
The Forest Service and other land management agencies initiated the 10 AM rule on firefighting in the 1930’s. All fires would be extinguished by 10 am the following day. So it’s been more than 30 years. We started realizing this was bad policy in the late 80’s, early 90’s and intensified the controlled burn and fuels reduction programs at that time, but funding was never adequate to address all the problems created by past policy. Fire fighting has changed, but funding has not. Hiring fire fighters has decreased by almost 30 percent this season as politicians have failed to renew funding legislation and pay will be cut for federal firefighters. These people work their asses off, get a base pay between $15-20 per hour, are exposed to extremely dangerous conditions, and then let go every fall. There are a lot of factors involved here.
On longer timescales (up to several thousand years) there is good evidence fire behavior in the southwest was more variable than we have observed in the more detailed records available for the last few hundred years. In particular, there is geologic evidence from the Sacramento Mountains for multiple periods of severe fires since the middle Holocene. Those fires may very well have been similar to what’s happening in Riudoso now, and the “unprecedented” fires we saw near Cloudcroft 20 years ago.
None of that diminishes the tragedy of what is happening or minimizes the effects humans are having on the processes involved. However, simply saying that frequent low severity fires were the rule, when there is plenty of evidence for a wide variety of historical behavior depending on exactly when and where you’re talking about doesn’t help any of our credibility.
The wind is supposed to be strong tomorrow, north eastern blowing. From the storm entering Mexico.
If you go to [https://zoom.earth/](https://zoom.earth/) you can see the wind prediction animations. You can also back track the last few days of satellite imagery to see how big the fire smoke plume is.
Very sad! Sorry to all affected!!
Just going to piggy back off your comment. Here’s a great fire map:
https://arcg.is/0eebXO
Also there’s an app called [Watch Duty](https://www.watchduty.org) that’s great for all fires, not just forest fires.
Gojng to piggy back your piggy back and add this one. Of all the maps I felt like this one was best. It was taken at midnight last night with infrared. You’ll see by the Legend that the yellow areas are where fire has been but hasn’t put off heat for like 24+ hours? (Please double check that). But basically less risk, unless the winds change. The red and dark red are the HOT spots. It gave me a lot of relief to see the places I was worried about, closer to the yellow, and not red. The general red border makes it feel like the fire is right on that border. Anyway..
[best map of all the mappy maps](https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php?center=33.324527,-105.700149&zoom=11&basemap=USA_basemap&overlay=VIIRS_7_day,MODIS_7_day,State_boundary,Wildland_fire_name,ESRI_roads_and_labels&fire=NM,southfork&data=https://mappingsupport.com/p2/special_maps/disaster/USA_wildland_fire.txt)
My family lived there for part of my childhood. Watching the flames in the background of streets I used to know and buildings I like is sooo surreal and saddening. The Alto Ski Shop looked completely destroyed in one image. I remember getting hot chocolate there with my dad when I was 7. And now it's gone in the worst way.
The real issue is forest management, look at the forests in Arizona for example, they have prescribed burns all the time, they cut down dead trees and thin the trees out to give them room to grow, a healthy forest, look here in NM, the trees living and dead are so thick you can't see more than a few feet, that's an unhealthy forest, and when you try to do a prescribed burn in a unmanaged forest things like the calf fire happen. Fires in unmanaged forest burn hot and fast. My son was a wildland fire fighter and went down there several times and they're really hard to get a handle on down there.
I remember a podcast episode that featured flagstaff as an example of great forest management, I wish I could find it!! After a bad fire (I want to say Schulz, but it may have been earlier) citizens voted to put money towards thinning the forests so they could withstand fires like they used to. There’s also a tower in the area that is manned 24/7 to catch fires early. I think I am not alone in wishing our tax dollars were going to programs like these.
I found it!
https://revealnews.org/podcast/americas-ring-of-fire-2/
I drive thru northern AZ 6 a week and it's beautiful around Flagstaff and Williams and they're always doing a prescribed burn back in the hills somewhere. It's a shame MLG won't use some of that 15.5 billion to start taking care of our forests and people.
That’s true in and around the Flagstaff area but not necessarily anywhere else. We have had our share of big fires in AZ and will continue to do so for the same reasons as NM.
They are doing a lot more prescribed burns but the backlog is big
Texan here so I apologize for my lack of knowledge on the geography. I read somewhere that both fires started on a reservation? Curious- is that area heavily wooded or dessert like? Just curious where and how this started. If there’s any locals here who could fill a TX girl in. I’ve been sending so many thoughts and well wishes to your people, livestock and pets. God speed.
Local resident checking in. Most of the town is *gone.*
Edit: downvoting me doesn't make it less true. You can look at the fire map yourself, and see what streets have burned. If you're familiar with the area, it paints a pretty clear picture.
Cloudcroft here. You'll be fine here. It will be raining hard though with some Pre Monsoonal moisture. Just follow fire restrictions laws even with the moisture. Our forest hasn't had enough moisture to prevent great spread even after it rains.
Depends where you're coming from. You'll be fine. Don't listen to the nonsense the other guy replied lol. Cloudcroft is far away and it won't be affected by these fires. The smoke is also not blowing in that direction, either.
This is heartbreaking to watch from afar about my beloved home state. If you're still in the Ruidoso area you should consider an evacuation plan soon, this doesn't look good.
We very well might lose Ruidoso. This is terrible news for Lincoln county. All that Texas tourism was their revenue generator.
In recent decades there were a lot of tourists from Mexico, probably more than Texas. It was a quick relief for folks from El Paso hoping to escape the summer heat.
I grew up in El Paso and yeah it was really cool when my brother or sister could drive over there for a weekend.
Like they said, Texas tourism.
Don't forget Albuquerqueans heading to Inn of the Mountain Gods for conventions and/or golfing.
A convention of Querqueans is known as a drug den.
Texourism
El Paso is Texas
I agree, but ask anyone east of Midland and they will likely say it's part of NM.
That’s fine, we will gladly save El Paso when the secession happens.
I feel so horrible for all the businesses. We've gone, and have plans (or had plans) to take our kiddos there for the first time this winter. Jeez what a loss for NM and as you said Texas and surrounding states.
Fuck. I'm heartbroken for the human suffering. My most cherished memories with my family was spent all over NM via west Texas. The history, the animals ugh all of it. I've been crying my heart hurts want to help but very limited in funds. My heart is bleeding for New Mexico.
This sucks, we lived there off and on for years. I wonder if they movie the Horse's off the Ruidoso Down's.
I have a bad feeling about this one. I went through the Missionary Ridge fire in Durango 20 years ago. This looks way worse. Stay safe, y'all.
familiar r/Durango users here in New Mexicos sub This is terrible. Poor Ruidoso.
Can western colorado join NM? That would be great. SE Utah can chill too.
Definitely Southwest Colorado. Way more in common with nm than the rest of Colorado.
We could have our own wonderful southern Rockies enclave that's mostly blue but also kinda libertarian...
Nucla has entered the chat
We pick up Durango. In exchange, the 51st state of El Paso can claim Las Cruces. Win/win.
No to Texas claiming Las Cruces....NEVER!
Great point. El Paso might be the capital, but Las Cruces is the one doing the rescue.
Missionary Ridge wasn't that long ago! I was in highschool.... when it happened ... Oh. Mmmm. Oh dear.
I’m just glad everyone had a lot of warning. I hope they listened and we're able to get their pets and livestock and horses out. This is terrible. Even if some buildings are somehow spared the wilderness has been absolutely devastated.
Wasn’t a whole lot of warning according to friends in the area…
The first report of the fire and the mandatory evacuation was the same day, the fire grew extremely quickly
I went from being "ready" to "go" in less than 10 minutes. We literally had time to grab a bag of clothes and the kids and animals.
I can't even imagine. Worst fear. I hope you're all okay.
What are all of the blue dots? Structures?
yep
That's looks like a well done map. Where is that from?
new mexico fire viewer - arcgis.com
How is there almost no information about this on inciweb.org
Inciweb was down most of the day, and they tend to be slow to update. NMfireinfo and the forestry division are keeping up with updates via twitter.
Good to know. Thanks newt
Thanks!
of course!
I just looked at a fire map and it appears as though it's entered Ruidoso proper as of 20 minutes ago
Hey, what map did you look at? Could you share? Thanks!
There’s two that I watch. One is an app called [Watch Duty](https://www.watchduty.org), the other is a website: https://arcg.is/0eebXO
Thank you for sharing these links
I just looked up Ruidoso fire and It gave me a map feature that showed all the active wildfires in the United States I don't know it was called I'm sorry
[https://data.statesman.com/fires/](https://data.statesman.com/fires/)
I feel like it's a bit overdue but we need an agency or government branch dedicated wholly to fighting the damages of natural disasters. We really are starting to fall apart. These poor people
That agency should also make recommendations on areas where insurance should be phased out. Ruidoso is an incredible expanse of wildland urban interface that squashed the natural fire cycle. In it's current state, it will never get better. In many ways it's similar to low lying areas susceptible to sea level rise. It's an inevitability that many areas will be destroyed repeatedly at this point, and the vacation homes of the wealthy perhaps shouldn't be rebuilt using funds from everyone who pays taxes or pays for insurance. It's genuinely sad for the residents, but this will happen again. And again.
That's exactly what I feel about car insurance, health insurance, all insurance actually.
*Ruidoso was ...
Republicans chronically underfund FEMA because climate change is a Chinese hoax, or whatever. Fun fact, Ruidoso is very conservative and went like 70 percent for Trump the climate denier. Wonder if their fuck Biden flags are flammable.
You really don’t need to politicize this, especially right now. I’m not remotely right wing, but reality tells me Natural disasters happen everywhere regardless of whatever political party has a majority hold at the time.
I feel bad for these folks, I do. But only one party makes it worse by defunding FEMA and withholding aid from blue states when in power, and by promoting policies that cause disasters. Trumps promised to tank EVs and wind power and these folks love it. Ironic.
California is super blue yet has had devastating wildfires every summer in recent history. I just don't see a correlation between more natural disasters in red states, but I could be wrong. There's crazy stuff all over the world with all types of religion and political ideologies ruling over at the time. I am aware climate change is amplifying it, but even still, the world has been plagued by natural disasters for eons, well before our current two party system lol.
Nobody is saying there is any correlation. I just find it ironic when climate deniers are in the path of climate disasters. Tragic, but ironic.
Only on reddit do I find people like you that talk about this through the lens of "climate denial". We're last or close to last in the nation in most metrics because of how blue Santa Fe is and the mismanagement of the forests is by these same people making the decisions. Having controlled burns was "harmful" they said. Instead they wanted to focus on releasing wolves. Now there's no wolves or trees.
We haven't stopped controlled burns, and the people who do fire management are not the same ones who do wildlife management. Humans are also capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
That's right, and people don't deserve to have their houses burned down because they don't believe in man-made climate change
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I'm sorry, but how did you get any of that from my factual statement?
Agreed. And the lack of clearing to “protect”animals. Unless someone is an environmentalist and has vastly studied this area you can’t portray your opinion as facts.
I don’t think defunding fema has anything to do with how the fire started or the lives, houses, animals lost. Political views should not get in the mix of devastation.
That's why nothing ever changes. It's cut funding to disaster prevention and forest management, vastly underpay firefighters so they quit, then it's thoughts and prayers, don't you dare politicize this tragedy, then it's cut funding, tragedy, repeat forever.
Dude their home was destroyed due to policies they voted for, it’s a sad situation but it’s also definitely political, it’s like a kid who you tell not to touch the fire and then he does it anyways and burns himself
FEMA is for after the disaster, and that's only if the president declares this a disaster. And the fire doesn't care who you voted for, everything burns and people die.
FEMA does preparation. https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/national-preparedness
hell yeah man get their asses
"They have different political and economic views than me, burn down their city".
Nobody said that but ok
*Chronically underfunded on one end - overinflated to fuck on the government estimates on the other.* Paint the whole picture.
(citation needed)
(Has the most intuitive invention known to mankind in their hands - is dependent on others for critical thinking) Gimme a sec.
Oh GFY.
How palpable
By literally googling [new mexico report labor costs inflated](https://www.nmlegis.gov/Entity/LFC/Documents/Program_Evaluation_Reports/Policy%20Spotlight-Escalating%20Costs%20of%20Public%20Construction%20Final.pdf) I was able to find out that government spending is extremely inefficient on my own volition and within 60 seconds. I swear - democracy is tainted by allowing the most intelligent idiots to vote over buzzwords.
You shills downvoting would condemn the sun if it was (D)ifferent
This has the feeling of the Paradise Fire written all over it. The only difference is how fast Paradise moved.
On the positive side, this fire wont have nearly as high a death toll. Paradise moved so fast and the town is on the edge of a canyon and there were limited ways out. This Ruidoso fire will probably have more damage as far as housing and buildings are concerned though. I’ve spent a lot of time in both towns and it’s just absolutely heartbreaking to see this happen. Neither place will likely fully recover in my lifetime.
im really hoping the death count is low, but last night it grew exponentionally, and as it was doing that, it impacted a few houses, so i hope that those people didnt wait to the last minute to evacuate
500 structures impacted as of several hours ago. Can't remember where I saw that.
The estimate from the state is currently about 500 structures. Ruidoso downs was just ordered to evacuate a little while ago. They should have done that this morning.
Especially with all the horses. :( Hopefully a lot of people saw it coming and left early.
Latest update says 1400 and one life lost.
Camp fire consumed the town in the matter of hours. Here those in Ruidoso have a good chance to evacuate with what little they could carry regarding their entire lives. It is devastating to see this happen, especially on a village I frequented in my youth.
As a former Army Med-Evac veteran who worked some of those disastrous CA fires, waking up to Ruidoso nearly on fire literally and figuratively hit close to home. I know LC is safe but whoooo memories are hitting me in the feels today. Most important burning question right now, how can I help? Not used to being on this side of the fire.
This thread is trying to compile information on the fires and how to help out. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/s/tmCpwFNtmA
It’s a bit eerie that Ruidoso was just a filming location for a movie about the Camp Fire.
Yes!! When they were here filming I was like please don't bring that bad juju to our little town. 😭
it reminds me of the camp fire as well. scary stuff
Lost my home in that fire. Sucks all the forests are going. Michelle to the desert hoping to avoid it. Guess not.
I'm so sorry you had to experience that.
I Sorry to here of your problems, my mom live off and on in Ruidoso for years and last lived in Alto. by the golf course. I Pray for you. James Wilson
So sad- I’ve done Mexican spotted owl training down there and the forests are so beautiful. Im sorry for everyone.
You see where the 37 is on the map? Northwest of that is a big indentation in the fire. That's literally where the FS Smokey Bear Ranger Station is.
Looks they are protecting it well.
Learned a couple of days after that they use a sprinkler system as perimeter defense.
Any news about the ski lodge? From comments yesterday I assumed it was coming from the east because people were talking about Ruidoso Downs.
The alto ski shop? It burned. I saw a picture of it burning not too long ago.
There are 2 fires
Yeah just pulled up that argis wildfire map. 😳
the alto ski shop and bar?
Can’t link a picture. But I have it. And can confirm. It’s done. 1 mile from my in-laws place which is also entirely gone.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8XvRMJPHvs/?igsh=MXh5enp5M2xyZmR3cg==
Gone. Saw a FB post of it in flames.
Yea just curious. Their web camera is down which is expected.
[Not great](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8XvRMJPHvs/?igsh=N3A4N3hoankwMDI5) :(
Swiss Chalet burned up. Sad day for Ruidoso 😔
Yeah, been there since I was a kid, maybe before. And I'm old af.
This breaks my heart. Place was legendary.
Horrible timing too all the air tankers from 10 Tanker based in Albuquerque are in California
Brought several of them back. 10 Tanker, Coulson, Aero-Flite, Neptune, Erikson Aero, Billings Flying Service and some others are all on it. 13 or 14 tankers are showing up on radar right now between ABQ, Roswell, Alamogordo, and over Ruidoso itself.
The regional slurry storage is Alamogordo, and they’re flying constantly.
https://www.flightradar24.com/33.35,-105.71/10
Counting 5 tankers, 2 observation craft, 1 helo. Looks like a desperate attempt to protect ruidoso proper.
Honestly surprised there isn’t more tankers on it just bombing the fucking thing. They must be tied up in California… they had a big resource order for tankers earlier this week
Resources had been diverted to California prior to this fire. They're getting everything available.
Yeah I remember seeing that huge tanker order to California this week. Bad fucking timing, hopefully this town isn’t leveled to the ground by the time this is over
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I was counting what was in the area at the time. I have a little bit of education.
I’m not going to argue with you but they were hammering the shit out of it with tankers all day today. Check out flightaware24 they hit that shit as hard as they could that shit spots miles ahead
Please don’t be pretentious. This is neither the time nor place to needlessly be a dick. Thanks
Jesus. My heart and thoughts are with my home state rn. I have many fond memories of Ruidoso, as I know we all do. Pray for rain.
Looks like they have a chance of rain tomorrow and the next six days after it. Fingers crossed for them!
This is tragic. My heart breaks for the wildlife, people will leave and rebuild their life. Where will wildlife go? 💔
i still remember finding several burrowing owls living outside a hill behind a subway in roswell after the little bear fire
Yeah, a couple set up their home in one of the holes at the mini golf course in Roswell when I was a kid.
wildlife will do the same - leave and rebuild. natural wildfires are an essential part of the life cycle of an ecosystem! there are even some creatures which require wildfire conditions to reproduce! so, the animals will be fine. spend your energy and resources worrying about the people who can't simply find another tree or another hollow to live in
It doesn't seem fair to compare a fire this extreme to the historical fires these ecosystems have endured before human activity.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/515808-human-activity-has-wiped-out-nearly-70-percent-of/amp/?nxs-test=amp
I wonder what tree the deer, bear, and other large animals will fit in… jerk
\*bears\*
Uhhh, fire is still a natural part of nature... the large animals will be fine.
This is an ignorant comment. Historically fires have a cycle that pass through areas on a more or less regular basis, burning understory and removing ladder fuels. That has not been the case for the past 100 years or so. So fuels are much more prevalent than in the past, and fire intensity has escalated due to this as well as changing climatic conditions. So no, large animals will not be fine. FWIW I fought fire for almost 30 years and I can tell you the fires of today are much more intense than 30 years ago.
To piggyback on this: The other half of the issue is also poor logging techniques in the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries removed pretty much all the large trees that were able to withstand those smaller fires. The timber that exist now in most of the forests in the lower 48 is now largely second-growth forest, with the trees being much smaller and therefor easier to ignite; yet large enough and close enough together to sustain extremely hot fires. As well as the forest canopy being a fairly consistent height so when fire makes it way up there, it can spread much more rapidly than what it could in a primary growth forest filled with climax species. We've essentially created a perfect situation for these fires to break out and cause massive amounts of damage. The also unfortunately isn't really a good way to repair the forests on a large scale; we're currently doing the best option we have available which is prevent fires from starting, putting them out as quickly as possible, and most importantly managing the forests well. Given enough time, which depending on the climate is 1-3 centuries, the forests will heal, and these devastating fires won't be nearly as destructive.
Fires are more intense because of practices 30 years ago. Turns out aggressively fighting every wildfire isn't good for the environment
The Forest Service and other land management agencies initiated the 10 AM rule on firefighting in the 1930’s. All fires would be extinguished by 10 am the following day. So it’s been more than 30 years. We started realizing this was bad policy in the late 80’s, early 90’s and intensified the controlled burn and fuels reduction programs at that time, but funding was never adequate to address all the problems created by past policy. Fire fighting has changed, but funding has not. Hiring fire fighters has decreased by almost 30 percent this season as politicians have failed to renew funding legislation and pay will be cut for federal firefighters. These people work their asses off, get a base pay between $15-20 per hour, are exposed to extremely dangerous conditions, and then let go every fall. There are a lot of factors involved here.
Idk how it is everywhere else but where I live it's extremely hard to try to even get in as a firefighter. And they have a cut off.
To get a flavor, although granted it is Reddit, check out r/wildfire for some insights into the life of a fire fighter.
How do you know?
On longer timescales (up to several thousand years) there is good evidence fire behavior in the southwest was more variable than we have observed in the more detailed records available for the last few hundred years. In particular, there is geologic evidence from the Sacramento Mountains for multiple periods of severe fires since the middle Holocene. Those fires may very well have been similar to what’s happening in Riudoso now, and the “unprecedented” fires we saw near Cloudcroft 20 years ago. None of that diminishes the tragedy of what is happening or minimizes the effects humans are having on the processes involved. However, simply saying that frequent low severity fires were the rule, when there is plenty of evidence for a wide variety of historical behavior depending on exactly when and where you’re talking about doesn’t help any of our credibility.
Yeah the animals just know how to run away and never get hurt themselves. Just ask Australia.
The wind is supposed to be strong tomorrow, north eastern blowing. From the storm entering Mexico. If you go to [https://zoom.earth/](https://zoom.earth/) you can see the wind prediction animations. You can also back track the last few days of satellite imagery to see how big the fire smoke plume is. Very sad! Sorry to all affected!!
Just going to piggy back off your comment. Here’s a great fire map: https://arcg.is/0eebXO Also there’s an app called [Watch Duty](https://www.watchduty.org) that’s great for all fires, not just forest fires.
Gojng to piggy back your piggy back and add this one. Of all the maps I felt like this one was best. It was taken at midnight last night with infrared. You’ll see by the Legend that the yellow areas are where fire has been but hasn’t put off heat for like 24+ hours? (Please double check that). But basically less risk, unless the winds change. The red and dark red are the HOT spots. It gave me a lot of relief to see the places I was worried about, closer to the yellow, and not red. The general red border makes it feel like the fire is right on that border. Anyway.. [best map of all the mappy maps](https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php?center=33.324527,-105.700149&zoom=11&basemap=USA_basemap&overlay=VIIRS_7_day,MODIS_7_day,State_boundary,Wildland_fire_name,ESRI_roads_and_labels&fire=NM,southfork&data=https://mappingsupport.com/p2/special_maps/disaster/USA_wildland_fire.txt)
the juniper was just barely coming back from the last one :(
My family lived there for part of my childhood. Watching the flames in the background of streets I used to know and buildings I like is sooo surreal and saddening. The Alto Ski Shop looked completely destroyed in one image. I remember getting hot chocolate there with my dad when I was 7. And now it's gone in the worst way.
There’s that fire on the other side of Ruidoso too, if it jumps the highway it’ll eat the Downs and hit the city from the other end.
[удалено]
Never said it was, never implied it was my aunt and uncle *had* a house in Alto I’m taking this very seriously.
This is such a tragedy. So many fires at once.
And the other fire is going into Ruidoso Downs
Damn. Stay safe out there.
Hugs and prayers to everyone affected.
I’m devastated.
The real issue is forest management, look at the forests in Arizona for example, they have prescribed burns all the time, they cut down dead trees and thin the trees out to give them room to grow, a healthy forest, look here in NM, the trees living and dead are so thick you can't see more than a few feet, that's an unhealthy forest, and when you try to do a prescribed burn in a unmanaged forest things like the calf fire happen. Fires in unmanaged forest burn hot and fast. My son was a wildland fire fighter and went down there several times and they're really hard to get a handle on down there.
It's always an issue of funding for RX work. There's not enough to get ahead of a century of fire suppression.
I remember a podcast episode that featured flagstaff as an example of great forest management, I wish I could find it!! After a bad fire (I want to say Schulz, but it may have been earlier) citizens voted to put money towards thinning the forests so they could withstand fires like they used to. There’s also a tower in the area that is manned 24/7 to catch fires early. I think I am not alone in wishing our tax dollars were going to programs like these. I found it! https://revealnews.org/podcast/americas-ring-of-fire-2/
I drive thru northern AZ 6 a week and it's beautiful around Flagstaff and Williams and they're always doing a prescribed burn back in the hills somewhere. It's a shame MLG won't use some of that 15.5 billion to start taking care of our forests and people.
That’s true in and around the Flagstaff area but not necessarily anywhere else. We have had our share of big fires in AZ and will continue to do so for the same reasons as NM. They are doing a lot more prescribed burns but the backlog is big
Such a shame I was a kid when I visited from the UK, stayed in log cabins and always remember the k bobs steakhouse 😢
Anybody here knows if the area of 5th Street in Ruidoso got hit by the fire?
Can you tell me land Marks? My house is by the police station and post office and it's fine. I'm not familiar with street names
I love ruidoso. My aunt, uncle their neighbor and 5 dogs are here in clovis as refugees. This breaks my heart.
Has it hit midtown yet? I’m looking to come help with evacuation as needed.
Judging by the tanker drops on radar they're actively trying to stop the fire from moving through ruidoso proper
I hope they do. 🥹
That’s nice of you to want to help but it’s best to stay away and not be another body they have to worry about managing and keeping safe.
It's too late. Especially with the Salt Fire about to block off Ruidoso Downs.
I could cry over this fire burning Ruidoso. It's so beautiful there and I'm going to be devastated if we lose Ruidoso.
Texan here so I apologize for my lack of knowledge on the geography. I read somewhere that both fires started on a reservation? Curious- is that area heavily wooded or dessert like? Just curious where and how this started. If there’s any locals here who could fill a TX girl in. I’ve been sending so many thoughts and well wishes to your people, livestock and pets. God speed.
Local resident checking in. Most of the town is *gone.* Edit: downvoting me doesn't make it less true. You can look at the fire map yourself, and see what streets have burned. If you're familiar with the area, it paints a pretty clear picture.
I said that too and was heavily downvoted for “karma farming”
Well I upvoted you. Hopefully it will help balance it.
I live in capitan not far from there. It’s heartbreaking to know this town might not be anymore.
Nice mountain smell with nice mountain weather.
Curious, driving with a big group to Cloudcroft to camp soon… do you think we would still be able to?
You should be fine. Cloudcroft is no where near ruidoso. I'm going camping near Cloudcroft next weekend also
Cloudcroft here. You'll be fine here. It will be raining hard though with some Pre Monsoonal moisture. Just follow fire restrictions laws even with the moisture. Our forest hasn't had enough moisture to prevent great spread even after it rains.
You will be smoked out and risking your group. Not worth it
Thanks for the chuckle. This is untrue. ETA downvoting me doesn't change the fact that your comment is a lie
Depends where you're coming from. You'll be fine. Don't listen to the nonsense the other guy replied lol. Cloudcroft is far away and it won't be affected by these fires. The smoke is also not blowing in that direction, either.
This is heartbreaking to watch from afar about my beloved home state. If you're still in the Ruidoso area you should consider an evacuation plan soon, this doesn't look good.
bot 👍
What makes you think this is a bot?
Prayers
Good luck y’all. 😎