ENVIRONMENT
Frijoles Fire exceeds 6,000 acres in Pecos Wilderness
Forest Service, law enforcement respond to 2nd drone incursion over fire since Saturday
The Frijoles Fire had grown to 6,214 acres in the Pecos Wilderness within the Santa Fe National Forest as of Tuesday morning, making it one of the largest fires to erupt in what is typically New Mexico鈥檚 peak rainy season.
Santa Fe Public Schools opted to hold indoor recess for students starting Tuesday. The district also canceled outdoor athletic practices due to poor air quality from heavy wildfire smoke, which has blanketed parts of north-central New Mexico in recent days.
Sean McNearney, a spokesperson for the Forest Service, said air tankers and helicopters battling the fire since it was discovered one week ago were grounded for the second time since Saturday due to a drone incursion around noon Tuesday.
鈥淲hen drones are sighted within the temporary flight restriction zone, which is a zone that's placed around an active fire, all aircraft are notified, and their suppression efforts are essentially halted until we can verify that the drone is no longer within the zone,鈥 McNearney said.
The Forest Service has called in a Complex Incident Management Team to manage the fire due to its continued growth in recent days. McNearney said more than 100 personnel are now on-site helping to fight the fire, including hotshots ground crews digging handline, aircraft teams and incident command managers.
On Monday Santa Fe County established a temporary shelter for evacuees from Camino de Ca帽on, a street in Cundiy贸 that was set to 鈥淕o鈥 status Monday afternoon.
The remainder of Cundiy贸 and the nearby village of Cerro Pi帽on remain in 鈥淪et鈥 status, meaning residents should be ready to leave with essential belongings should the fire threaten their homes.
The fire is located in remote and rugged terrain in the Pecos Wilderness. The blaze is one of more than a dozen believed to have been caused by lightning in state national forests since late July.
McNearney said the fire has plentiful dead and downed debris as fuel, but said he could not comment about past forest thinning projects in the area.
He emphasized the rarity of a wildfire of this magnitude during New Mexico鈥檚 monsoon weather pattern, which meteorologists last week told the Journal has been unusually weak so far, though more precipitation is in the forecast for later this week.
鈥淭his fire in this area, this time of year, is generally considered uncharacteristic,鈥 he said, 鈥渁nd really that's exhibited by the dry lightning storms that have gone through with strong outflow winds and then the high heat and low humidities.鈥
John Miller is the 近距离内射合集鈥檚 northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.