S.F. firefighter is mourned
Jemez Pueblo man dies in Alb.; police investigating incident as homicide
The Santa Fe Fire Department is mourning a young wildland firefighter who died Monday in what police suspect was a domestic dispute at an apartment in northeast Albuquerque.
The department announced the death of 25-year-old Charles Christian Reid, a father of two and a member of Jemez Pueblo, in a Facebook post Wednesday evening. A photo accompanying the post showed Reid dressed in yellow wildfire gear with a large saw swung over his shoulder and the blade cupped in his gloved palm.
He was a member of the department’s Atalaya Wildland Fire Hand Crew, the post said, offering condolences to loved ones and saying Reid “will be deeply missed by all.” The message did not mention the circumstances surrounding the man’s death.
“He definitely had the fire blood,” Greg Gallegos, wildland fire superintendent
for the city of Santa Fe, said Thursday. He described Reid as being “passionate about his job; he loved working here. … He was striving to do the best he could on the job.” Details of Reid’s death were scarce. According to a statement issued by Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Gilbert Gallegos and a brief report from the agency, a woman called 911 around 4:30 a.m. Monday from the Chateau Apartments on Osuna Road Northeast and said her boyfriend had cut her.
Officers responding to the call discovered Reid unconscious and bleeding heavily. First responders attempted to resuscitate him, the statement said, but the effort was unsuccessful. Reid was pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman’s arm was injured, the statement said.
It was unclear if anyone else was involved in the incident or if Reid had lived at the Osuna Road apartment.
His death is being investigated as a homicide, said Officer Simon Drobik, and is under review by the District Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque. No arrest has been made in the case, the officer said, declining to name any suspects.
Scores of people, saddened by the news of Reid’s death, offered sympathy to family members and friends and shared memories of the man in messages posted on the Santa Fe Fire Department’s Facebook page. Hundreds of others shared the agency’s announcement of his death.
Known to friends and co-workers as Christian, Reid was remembered as a sweet, courageous and hardworking man.
Many recalled him dancing and commented on his commitment to the Jemez Pueblo kiva.
“I’m sure we danced together, sang together and prayed together! Dance with us in the clouds brother!” Allen Paquin, also from Jemez Pueblo, wrote on Facebook.
Reid’s family members could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Greg Gallegos, the Santa Fe wildland fire superintendent, said Reid had an 8-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter.
Waldo Gutierrez, Reid’s basketball coach and English teacher at Jemez Valley High School, said he remembered Reid as a smart student, open to working on problems and expressing his emotions. Reid danced on Jemez Pueblo’s annual Feast Day in November, Gutierrez said Thursday.
“You name it, he danced in every single activity that they had. … He was just a beautiful human being,” Gutierrez said.
“To hear that somebody had taken his life is unreal to me because that is not the kind of person that Christian was,” Gutierrez added. “He always thought about other people before he thought about himself.”
Reid, a seasonal firefighter, had joined the Atalaya Wildland Fire Hand Crew in April and worked until mid-December, Gallegos said. It was at least his second season with a wildland crew. Such crews are often deployed to fight forest fires across New Mexico and other states.
Previously, Reid worked with a crew in the U.S. Forest Service’s Jemez Ranger District.
Gallegos said Reid was drawn to the outdoors, to the sweat and rigor of working in the forest.
In late August, he spent roughly 18 days fighting the Klondike Fire in Oregon. The blaze burned more than 175,200 acres.
“One thing that struck me,” Gallegos said of Reid, “he wanted to have the ability to see other places. He looked forward to expanding his career and maybe working in Montana and seeing outside of New Mexico … and then coming back to Jemez Pueblo.
“He wanted to bring all of his training and experience to the pueblo and be a leader.”
Reid had intended to reapply for a new season with the wildland crew, Gallegos said. The work can take a toll. “Everybody that is in wildland fire, they deploy for long periods of time, and it creates stress at home,” Gallegos said. Reid was trying to deal with that stress, he said, “like anybody else coming home from a fire.”