Fires growing in Jemez Springs area

Officials hope rainfall forecast this week will assist with firefighting efforts

As one of two fires in the Jemez Springs region grew and another in the Pecos Wilderness continued to burn, yet another conflagration broke out Sunday about five miles east of Española, sending new plumes of smoke into the otherwise blue sky.

Firefighters are hoping potential rainstorms on Monday and Tuesday can help dampen the various burns, most of which were caused by lightning strikes, then fueled by light winds and temperatures reaching into the 90s.

Little is known about the new fire near Española, first spotted early Sunday afternoon. Calls and emails left for firefighting personnel at the Española and Rio Arriba County fire departments were not returned Sunday.

Smoke from the various fires could be seen from as far away as Albuquerque, where smoke from the Venado Fire in the Santa Fe National Forest blanketed the city Sunday morning and made it nearly impossible to see the Sandia Mountains from the western side of the metro area.

Firefighters have not made much progress on containing the Venado Fire, which started with a lightning strike on Friday and grew from to 450 acres over the weekend. Smoke

from both of those fires developed over the Jemez Springs area.

But firefighters are having more success with the 450-acre Hidden Valley Fire in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, which was started by a lightning strike and reported July 15. Firefighters have 60 percent of it contained, said Brittney Van Der Werff, spokeswoman for the crews battling that blaze.

Van Der Werff, who was in Jemez Springs on Sunday, said the combined smoke from the two nearby fires was “pretty intense, very significant.”

Three Hotshot crews, one helicopter with a bucket, one bulldozer and two engines are battling the Venado blaze, which had not been contained at all as of Sunday evening. About 120 people, including support staff, are combating that fire, said Santa Fe National Forest spokesman Bruce Hill.

He said no one has been hurt in that blaze and said there are no residences or other structures in danger. But the blaze has led to the closure of much of Forest Road 376.

Both Van Der Werff and Hill said they were hoping rain would fall in the region Monday.

Troy Marshall, a meteorological technician at the National Weather Service office in Albuquerque, said there is a 50 percent chance of precipitation for the Santa Fe and Jemez Springs areas on Monday and Tuesday.

“There is the potential for heavy rainfall,” he said of Monday’s forecast.

But light to moderate winds from the southeast are expected as well over the course of those two days, Marshall said. Temperatures may drop to the low 90s or into the mid-80s, he said.

Meanwhile, the Sarca Fire in the Pecos Wilderness, which was caused by a lightning strike on July 7, had reached 40 acres Sunday and was expected to grow. Hill said the fire’s behavior was “low … with one-foot flame lengths, so it appears that what it is doing is burning pine needles that are laying low along the forest floor.”

That fire is in a remote area of the forest and is not threatening any structures, he said.