LOCAL & REGION
Thursday, July 18, 2013 THE NEW MEXICAN
Planned burn could scorch In brief Head Start 900 acres near Angel Fire Two centers closing Black Lake burn area
Sangre de Cristo Chronicle
Upper Coyote Creek Watershed
ANGEL FIRE — A prescribed fire on up to 900 acres of forested land about five miles south of Angel Fire could burn within 150 yards from some homes in the Black Lake area this fall. “Nine hundred acres is going to put up a lot of smoke, and it’s going to have a lot of people concerned,” said Fire Chief Andy Bertges of Angel Fire. “Part of the prescription is winds from the southwest, so it will push all the smoke away from the communities and into the uninhabited areas.” A nonprofit organization based in Santa Fe, the Forest Guild is collaborating on the prescribed burn with about a dozen other entities, including the New Mexico State Land Office, the U.S. Forest Service and the fire departments in Angel Fire and Moreno Valley. The burn is scheduled for Sept. 30 through Oct. 4 in ponderosa pine and dry mixed conifer forests on state trust land immediately northeast of N.M. 434 and N.M. 120. The southern boundary of the proposed burn area is about 150 yards north of Susan Lane in Black Lake. Although the maximum allowable burn area includes 900 acres, Eytan Krasilovsky of the Forest Guild said, “We’re probably looking at somewhere between 750 and 850 acres.” The October 2012 Midnight Fire near Red River burned 363 acres, and the June 2013 Whites Peak Fire near Cimarron charred 1,275. The area will be divided into smaller sections that will probably be burned individually instead of at the same time, Krasilovsky said. “We’re not just lighting the whole thing at once,” he said, adding that the Forest Guild is contracting with a professional burn boss for the job. “They are going to use a variety of ignition techniques to ensure that it doesn’t go over holding lines.” Krasilovsky said the fire is expected to stay on the ground and out of the treetops. “We expect the fire to consume some of the dead and downed fuels on the ground,” he said. “We don’t expect it to kill the standing trees, but it might kill some. It’s not a scalpel. It’s not a precise tool. We can’t 100 percent say that none of the standing trees are going to eventually die, but we’re using all the best practices so the fire stays on the ground and consumes the grasses and shrubs.” Krasilovsky said the Forest Guild has asked the Bureau of Land Management to bring a mobile fire station to the proposed burn area in August to monitor site-specific weather trends that could affect the fire. “We’re doing a fall burn to have greater control over fire behavior,” he added. Materials from the Forest Guild state that forested land throughout Northern New Mexico has become overly dense because of wildfire suppression, overgrazing and logging activities, and that the reintroduction of fire helps return forested areas to a healthier state. Heavy fire fuels have already been removed from the pro-
Taos County State lands
Black Lake
Black Lake Resorts
posed burn area through mechanical thinning, which is a forestry technique whereby chain saws and other equipment are used to remove vegetation that could cause wildfires to spread. According to Mark Meyers, forester with the New Mexico State Land Office, fire plays a natural role in the ecosystem and will occur in the area one way or another. “We know that fire is coming,” he said. “So our effort is trying to shift the pattern of high-severity fires that jeopardize these communities and firefighters who are put up there to fight them, to a low-intensity fire that benefits the communities and the ecosystem.” Krasilovsky said the proposed burn will be a continuation of forest-restoration work already completed on a 12,000-acre parcel of state trust land that extends from Black Lake Ocate. The federal and state governments have already funded treatment projects in three adjacent sites on the western side of the parcel, according to project materials. A major goal of the restoration work is to help protect nearby residential areas from wildfires, Krasilovsky said. The Black Lake burn is also meant to help protect the Upper Coyote Creek watershed by reducing the risk of high-intensity wildfires and improving soil, understory diversity and hydrological conditions, according to project materials. Through a partnership with the U.S. Fire Learning Network, the burn will also serve as training for wildland firefighters, forestrestoration practitioners and private and state land managers. The training is meant to help build the capacity to use prescribed fires in New Mexico. “We need to have more prescribed-fire practitioners out there doing burns to keep the forests in a condition that is not susceptible to catastrophic fire,” Krasilovsky said. Most of the funding for the $171,836 project will come from the U.S. Forest Service’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. For more information on the proposed burn, contact Krasilovsky at 505-983-8992 ext. 16 or eytan@forestguild.org. Visit www.forestguild. org/blacklaketraining.html.
State needs OK to scan weapons records The Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE — The New Mexico Department of Public Safety has spent tens of thousands of dollars to digitize tons of paper records on concealed weapons licenses but doesn’t yet have required approval to implement its plan. The State Records Center and Archives is waiting for the department to submit a plan for scanning the records, KRQE-TV reported. “There’s a plan that needs to
come through, and we haven’t received that plan yet,” said John Hyrum Martinez, state records administrator. “We’ve been waiting on it.” The Department of Public Safety wants to reduce costs on storing records that it must keep for three years after a four-year license expires. So far in 2013, the agency has issued more than 6,600 new and renewed concealed-weapon licenses. The department spent $30,000 on four scanners and more to hire temporary work-
ers to process the records. Sgt. Suzanne Skasik, head of the concealed-weapons program, said DPS is working on its plan and she said she’s confident it will be approved by year’s end. In the meantime, the department also has spent $22,000 on three shipping containers to store the paperwork. Skasik said DPS is also looking at how concealed weapon programs work in other states, including those that allow residents to fill out paperwork online.
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Presbyterian Medical Services announced Wednesday that it will close two Head Start centers in Santa Fe County due to funding reductions caused by the federal budget sequestration. The sites to be closed include the Chimayó Head Start and Nizhoni Early Head Start centers. The Chimayó center provided services for 20 children until the conclusion of the school semester in the spring. Those children will be able to get services at the Arroyo Seco and Nambé Head Start sites. The Nizhoni center, located on the campus of the Institute of American Indian Arts, serves 16 infants and toddlers. It will close effective July 26. In addition, three staff members were laid off, and other staff members were informed of two-week furloughs to be implemented in the current fiscal year. Presbyterian’s Santa Fe County Head Start Program currently serves 394 children. That number will be reduced to 374. It also serves 188 infants and toddlers, and that number will be reduced to 172. The number of sites will be reduced from 12 to 10. Presbyterian Medical Services has administered Head Start in Santa Fe County since 1996. The overall reduction in federal funding is $711,000 in the four counties in which Presbyterian administers services: Sandoval, San Juan, Santa Fe and Torrance counties.
Franklin Miles field to close A field on the southeast side of Franklin Miles Park will be closed from July 22 to Aug. 5 for maintenance. The field borders Siringo
tion between the institutions. College President Kathie Winograd says the partnership is the result of off-and-on discussions for the past three years.
Vandals paint racial slurs
ALBUQUERQUE — Vandals have struck an Albuquerque neighborhood, spray-painting racial epithets and swastikas on houses. Police say at least five homes The Santa Fe Public Library is were tagged early Tuesday with seeking two volunteers to serve black spray paint. The hatefilled words and symbols were on the Santa Fe Library Board. plastered on mailboxes, garage Members will be appointed doors and outside walls. by Mayor David Coss. Residents, who cleaned up Board members serve three most of the vandalism later years and provide advice on Tuesday, said the racial slurs library policies such as facility use, book selection and manage- were aimed at blacks and Jews. Vandals also left Satanic mesment and operation rules. The sages. board meets monthly. Curtis Lombardi told KRQEApplicants for the unpaid TV he found the epithets in positions must live in the city of Santa Fe. To apply, send a résumé the morning and immediately started getting rid of it. and letter of interest to: Maria Albuquerque police say the Finley, Santa Fe Public Library, graffiti is not being investigated 145 Washington Ave., Santa Fe, as a hate crime because it didn’t NM 87501 Applicants can also appear as if anyone was targeted. hand-deliver applications to the No arrests have been made. Main Library, 145 Washington Ave., by 5 p.m., July 31.
City seeks to fill library board seats
Schools team up in Rio Rancho
Lieutenant gov. travels to Okla.
Lt. Gov. John Sanchez plans to attend a meeting in Oklahoma RIO RANCHO — The Uniof the National Lieutenant Govversity of New Mexico and ernors Association. Central New Mexico CommuThe meeting runs from nity College are teaming up on Wednesday to Friday in Oklathe design and construction of a homa City. new facility in Rio Rancho. Sanchez’s office said there The schools say the new facilwill be policy discussions about ity will focus on science, techhealth care, immigration, fednology, engineering, health care eral farm programs and energy and mathematics. issues such as the oil and It will be located at a site to natural gas industry practice of be determined on the schools’ hydraulic fracturing. current adjacent campuses in The event also includes a visit the Albuquerque suburb. to the community of Moore, The design process will start which was hit by a tornado with a joint planning exercise, in May that killed 24 people, and UNM President Robert including 10 children. Frank says the collaboration will Staff and wire reports require a new level of coopera-
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The Santa Fe New Mexican’s
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By Jesse Chaney
Road and Nava Elementary School, said Gary Varela, parks superintendent, who said he hopes the field won’t be closed for the full three weeks. Varela said the rest of the park will remain open. Crews will till the soil, remove weeds, add new topsoil and plant grass seed in damaged areas throughout the field.
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