NEW MEXICO NUKE TOWN ABLAZE; GOVERNMENT SET FIRE BURNS OUT OF CONTROL

By Chris Roberts Associated Press Writer Thursday, May 11, 2000; 2:24 p.m. EDT

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.  A firestorm swept through the abandoned streets of Los Alamos today, burning as many as 400 homes, some down to their foundations, while frustrated firefighters braced for wind gusts up to 60 mph.

All 11,000 people in Los Alamos were evacuated, and this morning another 7,000 fled suburban White Rock, where many evacuees had once sought safety.

"We weren't ready down here. We were the refugee center for our friends," Kirk Christensen said as he and his wife loaded their camper and headed into a sea of cars crawling down the highway. They were headed for a friend's house in Santa Fe, to camp in the yard.

Brick fireplaces were all that remained of some homes in Los Alamos. A basketball hoop remained intact on one driveway, its net still hanging but singed. The house was destroyed, the garage door was split in half and crumbled on the driveway.

Rep. Tom Udall, whose district includes Los Alamos, said federal officials estimated that 300 to 400 homes had been damaged. No injuries have been reported, but President Clinton declared New Mexico a major disaster area.

At the storied Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, for the first time shut down by fire, flames singed a research building but it did not ignite. Explosives and radioactive material were protected in fireproof facilities, lab officials said.

"We can assure the country and New Mexico that our nuclear materials are safe," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman.

The fire was set by the National Park Service a week ago to clear brush, but quickly flared out of control, racing through stands of ponderosa pine. It had burned less than 4,000 acres Wednesday morning, but after being fueled by 50 mph wind gusts Wednesday it grew to 18,000 acres.

The fire was too dangerous to battle head on, firefighters said. They pulled back as flames advanced, moving their command post to relative safety.

"This fire's got a mind of its own," county spokesman Bill Lehman said late Wednesday. Firefighters were reluctant to back off, Lehman said, but "there was just nothing we could do, because of the wind."

Water-bombing helicopters and airplanes dropping pink fire retardant bombarded the blaze, hoping to narrow its westward and northward thrust. Today's high wind could limit the use of firefighting aircraft.

Firefighters battling structure fires were frustrated Wednesday night by a lack of water pressure, and more water had to be trucked in.

Chris Judson, a fire information officer, predicted today would be a "nail-biter."

"I guess in another day or so, we're going to have a calm day at some point, but it's going to be a tough pull until then," Judson said. "And there's no moisture in the foreseeable future."

Los Alamos, 70 miles north of Albuquerque, is essentially a company town for the federal lab. It sprang up in the 1940s as the base of operations for the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb. There are still military barracks and military-style housing in Los Alamos, along with relatively upscale, newer developments.

Neighborhood by neighborhood, the town burned Wednesday and into today.

House after house filled with fire, glowed like jack-o-lanterns, then exploded in pulsing orange flames. Just after sundown, flames marched to a tree-covered ridge overlooking downtown, lighting the night sky.

As evacuees fled to shelters, hotels and motels outside Los Alamos, firefighter Sam Schroeder stood outside one flaming home.

"This is bizarre  this house won't be touched," she said, pointing to the house next door. "This one will go all the way to the ground."

About one-third of the 10,000 residents in western Espanola, in a valley 10 miles below Los Alamos, were advised to leave because of flames sparked by embers from the Los Alamos blaze.

The Los Alamos laboratory declared a general emergency at 11 p.m. Wednesday, saying there were grass and brush fires at three of its research facilities. A weapons-engineering facility was swept by fire, but the masonry building was left intact, lab officials said.

Public Service Company of New Mexico has shut off natural gas service to the lab, which was closed for the fourth straight day today, along with public schools and county offices. Public schools also were closed in nearby Espanola and Pojoaque, and Santa Fe High School was closed as evacuees streamed onto the campus.

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, planned to tour Los Alamos today, along with Richardson and New Mexico's senators, Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici.

Domenici said the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has asked the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative branch, to investigate the decision to set the fire.

"Somebody made a mistake and obviously we have to find out who," Domenici said. "Did someone do something that should not have been done considering the dry conditions and the wind?"

In south-central New Mexico, a fire started Sunday by a campfire burned more than 8,600 forested acres in the Ruidoso area and forced the evacuation of several neighborhoods. The fire, primarily in the Lincoln National Forest, was 35 percent contained by late Wednesday.

Another fire flared up some 50 miles northwest of Los Alamos in the Santa Fe National Forest. That blaze was burning in mixed conifer trees at the edge of the Jicarilla Apache reservation.

A fire also scorched more than 100 acres of cottonwood, Russian olive trees and salt cedar brush along the Rio Grande in central New Mexico. Firefighters contained the blaze and were watching for any possible flare-ups.

-- Smokey the bear (@ .), May 11, 2000

Answers

Smokey,

Fires can and will occur.

A catastrophic Y2k could not have occurred.

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), May 11, 2000.

So what you are saying is, because some Parks Services folks made a mistake in setting a brushfire, this made Koskinen and his minions less competent? Is this the best you could do?

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), May 11, 2000.

Congress: Y2K may be a severe crisis.

CIA: Y2K may be a severe crisis.

FBI: Y2K may be a severe crisis.

State: Y2K may be a severe crisis.

Kosky: We have built a $50,000,000.00 bunker.

Naw....the .gov wasn't worried...

LOL

-- Smokey the bear (@ .), May 11, 2000.

Domenici said the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has asked the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative branch, to investigate the decision to set the fire.

"Somebody made a mistake and obviously we have to find out who," Domenici said. "Did someone do something that should not have been done considering the dry conditions and the wind?"

Duh. But be nice to Pete, now. He hasn't had anything to investigate since those Twinkies were discovered missing from his lunchbox. (Yep, I can remember the days when legislators were actually elected to legislate something. What a concept...)

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), May 11, 2000.

SMOKEY; Baby doll ! Let em have it! Hot Shits on a Silver platter dont stink- my a**.

-- Cold Sh*t on a paper plate @ doomer.com (vgd38@hotmail.com), May 11, 2000.

Y2k Pro:

So what you are saying is, because some Parks Services folks made a mistake in setting a brushfire,

Nope, but your numbers are wrong. One burning in the big ditch [AZ] started the same way.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Y2k; just correcting your figures.

Best wishes,,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), May 11, 2000.

Duh. But be nice to Pete, now. He hasn't had anything to investigate since those Twinkies were discovered missing from his lunchbox. (Yep, I can remember the days when legislators were actually elected to legislate something. What a concept...)

I'm Here,

Don't worry. I'm sure hearings can lead to all sorts of legislation. ;-)

-- fwiw (a@b.c), May 11, 2000.

Andy & Pro

You missed the tag line. It wasn't a y2k bash but a gov bash. Blinders off please.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), May 11, 2000.

no it means Government employees are grossly incompetent, arrogant, brain dead and cannot be held accountable for their mistakes

I expect y2kpro is a government employee

-- richard (richard.dale@onion.com), May 12, 2000.

no it means Government employees are grossly incompetent, arrogant, brain dead and cannot be held accountable for their mistakes

And yet, they handled Y2K just fine.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), May 12, 2000.

And yet, they handled Y2K just fine.

Yeah they're apparently great with numbers, its striking matches that they find challenging.

-- Smokey the bear (@ .), May 12, 2000.

Smokey:

"Yeah they're apparently great with numbers, its striking matches that they find challenging."

This guy had been with the Department of Forestry for 30 years, 10 of which were at the forest he set fire. Do you REALLY think he simply woke up one morning and said, "I'm going to make the mistake of my life today"? One might call me a sucker, but I, personally, can't imagine the guilt this guy is experiencing right now. When was the last time YOU were faced with a decision that could either help a situation or result in consequences too horrible to imagine?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 12, 2000.

As I understand it, the National Weather Service advised him it was too dry and windy to attempt a controlled burn.

What's your point?

-- Smokey the bear (@ .), May 12, 2000.

Anita,

I don't know a thing about the supervisor who OK'ed starting the control burn but I do happen to have a copy of the fire weather forecast for New Mexico for May 5. It called for winds of 20-40 mph steady with gusts to 60 mph. Humidity was forecasted to be 25% in the morning falling to 10% by afternoon with fuel moisture down to 11%. All controlled burn permits for civilians were cancelled that day.

Anyone with any firefighting experience who allowed a controlled burn certainly needs some additional education :^)

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 12, 2000.

It seems that there was a fax that was sent to the guy's post, but he either didn't see it or didn't see it in time. Y'all may consider it gross negligence for not standing guard at the fax machine, but *I* think that if the guy really KNEW the situation, he wouldn't have erred......or is that errored?

Watching from the sidelines is similar to watching a movie on T.V. in which WE see the killer creeping through the house and wonder how the hero/heroine could be so stupid as to not see.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 12, 2000.

Poor dickie:

Bzzt - wrong again. Have yoou ever been correct about anything?

Do you know how many times last year one mouth-breathing doomer or another called me a gub'mint shill for simply pointing out facts?

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), May 12, 2000.

Anita,

Sorry, but standing by the fax machine isn't really the issue. No one authorizes a controlled burn unless you positively know the fire weather forecast. The fire weather is broadcast every morning over the Forest Service net as part of their morning status report. It's just SOP everywhere. This guy or his subordinates screwed up big time and I assume that heads will roll over it. My assumption is that they had a schedule to keep of controlled burns and time was running out as summer approaches. He decided to a chance that his crews could control the burn and lost.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 12, 2000.

I think Jim has this one right. Your responsibility is to perform a controlled burn within a certain time period. If you fail to perform your duty, this is VERY BAD careerwise, regardless of conditions on the ground. It goes in your record, and the weather conditions during the "burn window" somehow never make it in there.

So you haven't had a period of suitable weather for the whole damn burn period, time is running out. If you perform no burn, you *know* you'll have problems. If you do the burn, well, things might be awful but usually they won't. And if you don't do it, you know you can't ever *prove* it would have been bad. So you do it.

And of course, nobody will ever know if things would have been even worse if you'd done no burn, and a fire started naturally at the worst possible time. Sure, it's hard to imagine a worse fire than we have. But it's possible, or would have been.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 12, 2000.