Las Conchas Wildfire
The fire started at 1PM local on Sunday, on private land, but quickly grew large in the Red Flag fire weather that the area has been experiencing. It is racing through mixed conifer forest and is approaching the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Information from the current Las Conchas Wildfire InciWeb Page
- Date Started: 6/26/2011
- Location: Jemez Ranger District, Santa Fe National Forest; approximately 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos off NM 4 at mile marker 35, New Mexico
- Cause: Unknown – under investigation
- Size: 43,597 acres [68 miles² 176 km²] based on infrared data
- Percent Contained: 0%
- Injuries to Date: 0
- Number of Personnel: Approximately 315 including 2 hotshot crews and 9 hand crews
- Equipment: 5 dozers, 13 engines
- Aircraft: 3 helicopters
- Incident Commander: Joe S. Reinar, Type I Incident Management Team
Power and phone lines are down in the area. The fire is approximately 1 mile southwest of the boundary of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The fire has not entered Laboratory property at this time. All radioactive material is appropriately accounted for and protected.
[For the latest information click on the Fire symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Fires” for all of the posts related to wildfires on this site.]
2 comments
Eeep. Hopefully LANL is somewhat fireproofed by the large free-fire zones bulldozed on all sides of it, because there’s definitely buildings there where if they caught on fire, you’d have lots of folks glowin’ in the dark…
– Badtux the Not-so-glowing Penguin
Because of the 2000 wildfire LANL has really beefed up fire protection, and they have enough fire-proofing foam on site to cover everything, including their concrete bunkers.
The local county has built multiple water tanks since 2000, including a huge one that is dedicated to the fire hydrants because of problems during the Cerro Grande fire.
The local officials looked at Arizona and Texas and decided it was a matter of when, not if.
They suspect a downed power line near the town of Las Conchas as the cause. Based on local occurrences, I know that drought can suck all of the moisture out of the poles and make them brittle.