Tag Archives: New Mexico

Colorado wildfire rages as firefighters gain on New Mexico blaze US-USA-WILDFIRES

The 416 Fire near Durango, southern Colorado. REUTERS/Courtesy La Plata County, Colorado

(Reuters) – Hot weather was expected to stoke an unchecked wildfire in southern Colorado on Tuesday that forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

The blaze, dubbed the 416 Fire, spread across some 2,400 acres (971 hectares) early on Tuesday near Durango, Colorado, where the temperature was expected to reach into the high 80s.

The fire, which began on Friday, was just 10 percent contained on Tuesday morning, as about 825 homes remained under evacuation, officials said.

“In the coming days the fire is expected to burn actively,” the U.S. Forest Service said in an alert. “Firefighters will continue building defensible spaces around homes and structures.”

About 250 miles (400 km) to southeast, 1,110 residents of Cimarron, New Mexico were allowed back into their homes after showers on Sunday helped quell part of a separate blaze, the Ute Park Fire, which burned 36,000 acres (14,569 hectares) of drought-parched grassland and timber since erupting on Thursday.

Cimarron, a frontier-style town, lies about 140 miles (225 km) northeast of Albuquerque, the state’s largest city. Ute Park is about 10 miles (16 km) west of Cimarron.

By early Tuesday, fire crews had managed to carve containment lines around 25 percent of the blaze, up from zero containment on Sunday morning.

About 75 people from the small nearby community of Ute Park, near the Colorado border, remained under a mandatory evacuation on Monday, said Judith Dyess, spokeswoman for the multi-agency Southwest Incident Management Team managing the blaze.

The causes of both fires were unknown and under investigation. No injuries or property losses were reported from either.

“Critical fire weather and smoky conditions are expected to return in the coming days as a high pressure system is building from the south,” fire officials said in an alert regarding the New Mexico fire.

The nearby Santa Fe National Forest was closed to the public indefinitely on Friday in a rare measure prompted by the heightened fire risk from prolonged drought.

Rains fail to quench western U.S. wildfires

FILE PHOTO: Smoke is seen from a fire in this aerial shot above Cimarron, New Mexico, U.S., June 1, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media on June 2, 2018. Justin Hawkins/via REUTERS

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – Rains fell on two massive wildfires in the U.S. southwest but it was not enough to quench the fires that were burning through thousands of acres in New Mexico and Colorado early Monday, officials said.

“The rains came and we’re glad of it,” said Judith Dyess, a spokeswoman for the joint agency, South West Incident Management Team in New Mexico. “But it didn’t do it. We’re still burning out of control.”

“Overnight the fires calm down some, with the lower humidity,” Dyess said, “But we’re working around the clock.”

Progress was made, she said. The fires were 23 percent contained by early Monday in the larger of the two fires, the so-called Ute Park Fire in Colfax County, New Mexico.

That was a big improvement from the fire being zero percent contained early Sunday before the rains came, Dyess said.

It has already scorched some 30,000 acres near Cimarron, a town of about 1,100 people northeast of Santa Fe, according to a bulletin on the New Mexico Fire Information website.

Ten fire crews, totaling 510 people, 32 fire engines, eight helicopters and eight bulldozers, were deployed, officials said.

About 300 structures were threatened in Cimarron, where officials issued a mandatory evacuation order on Friday.

The town lies just northeast of the Santa Fe National Forest, which was closed to the public indefinitely on Friday in a rare measure prompted by the heightened fire risk from prolonged drought.

About a dozen outbuildings went up in flames on an adjacent ranch, fire officials said.

The cause of the fire, which began on Thursday and has been burning through grassland and pine forest, is not known.

A second wildfire started on Friday about 10 miles north of Durango, Colorado, raging across more than 2,255 acres late Sunday and forcing the evacuation of about 1,500 people near the southern border of the San Juan National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service said.

Air tankers dropped a red fire retardant slurry at the weekend on land near the fire 10 miles north of Durango along Highway 550, according to the Denver Post. Six helicopters dropped large buckets of water on the flames.

The fire was 10 percent contained, according to a fire bulletin from the National Weather Service (NWS) early Monday.

“Unfortunately there’s no more rain in sight,” said Brian Roth, a meteorologist with the NWS’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

“That’s it, what they got,” he said. “One and done. The rains have moved west into Arizona.”

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Paul Tait)

Trump administration demands documents from ‘sanctuary cities’

People visit the Liberty State Island as Lower Manhattan is seen at the background in New York, U.S., August 17, 2017.

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday escalated its battle with so-called sanctuary cities that protect illegal immigrants from deportation, demanding documents on whether local law enforcement agencies are illegally withholding information from U.S. immigration authorities.

The Justice Department said it was seeking records from 23 jurisdictions — including America’s three largest cities, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as three states, California, Illinois and Oregon — and will issue subpoenas if they do not comply fully and promptly.

The administration has accused sanctuary cities of violating a federal law that prohibits local governments from restricting information about the immigration status of people arrested from being shared with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Many of the jurisdictions have said they already are in full compliance with the law. Some sued the administration after the Justice Department threatened to cut off millions of dollars in federal public safety grants. The cities have won in lower courts, but the legal fight is ongoing.

The Republican president’s fight with the Democratic-governed sanctuary cities, an issue that appeals to his hard-line conservative supporters, began just days after he took office last year when he signed an executive order saying he would block certain funding to municipalities that failed to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The order has since been partially blocked by a federal court.

“Protecting criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and undermines the rule of law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

Democratic mayors fired back, and some including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio decided to skip a previously planned meeting on Wednesday afternoon at the White House with Trump.

“The Trump Justice Department can try to intimidate us with legal threats, but we will never abandon our values as a welcoming city or the rights of Chicago residents,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “The Trump administration’s actions undermine public safety by jeopardizing our philosophy of community policing, as they attempt to drive a wedge between immigrant communities and the police who serve them.”

IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

The issue is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown. As a candidate, he threatened to deport all roughly 11 million of them. As president, he has sought to step up arrests of illegal immigrants, rescinded protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought into the country illegally as children and issued orders blocking entry of people from several Muslim-majority countries.

Other jurisdictions on the Justice Department’s list include: Denver; San Francisco; the Washington state county that includes Seattle; Louisville, Kentucky; California’s capital Sacramento; New York’s capital Albany, Mississippi’s capital Jackson; West Palm Beach, Florida; the county that includes Albuquerque, New Mexico; and others.

The Justice Department said certain sanctuary cities such as Philadelphia were not on its list due to pending litigation.

On Twitter on Wednesday, De Blasio objected to the Justice Department’s decision to, in his words, “renew their racist assault on our immigrant communities. It doesn’t make us safer and it violates America’s core values.”

“The White House has been very clear that we don’t support sanctuary cities,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, adding that mayors cannot “pick and choose what laws they want to follow.”

The Justice Department last year threatened to withhold certain public safety grants to sanctuary cities if they failed to adequately share information with ICE, prompting legal battles in Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

In the Chicago case, a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction barring the Justice Department from withholding this grant money on the grounds that its action was likely unconstitutional. This funding is typically used to help local police improve crime-fighting techniques, buy equipment and assist crime victims.

The Justice Department is appealing that ruling. It said that litigation has stalled the issuance of these grants for fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Makini Brice; Editing by Will Dunham)

Gunman, two students dead after New Mexico high school shooting

police sirens

(Reuters) – A suspected shooter opened fire at a high school in New Mexico on Thursday, killing two students before being killed, according to police and officials from the nearby Navajo Nation.

Few other details were immediately available about the incident at Aztec High School in the city of Aztec, about 200 miles (322 km) northwest of Santa Fe, including whether the shooter was a student or if the shooter was killed by police.

The New Mexico State Police said no other injuries were reported, that the school was evacuated, and families of the victims were notified. Police said there were no other credible threats to students.

Garrett Parker, a sophomore at Aztec High School, told Hearst news affiliate KOAT, that he initially thought the gunshots were other kids banging on locker doors.

“As it got closer and louder and it was obvious it was gunshots. All I could think of was that definitely, this is it today, if whoever it is comes in then I’m probably done,” Parker said. “Thankfully our teacher always locked his door. When they called over the intercom that this was not a drill, we went over to the corner to the classroom out of sight of the door and just started hiding.”

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said in a statement that all schools in the area were placed on preventative lockdown as a precaution.

“It’s tragic when our children are harmed in violent ways especially on school campuses,” Begaye said in the statement.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay)

Record heat sparks warnings, boosts fires in western United States

Sun, Smoke, Sherpa Fire

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Wildfire warnings were posted across parts of three Western U.S. states on Sunday as a heat wave baked the region in record, triple-digit temperatures, stoking flames in California from the coastal foothills outside Santa Barbara to desert brush near the Mexican border.

Excessive heat advisories and “red flag warnings” for extreme fire conditions were in effect across southern portions of California, Nevada and Arizona, the National Weather Service reported on the eve of the first official day of summer.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, the mercury topped out at 109 degrees Fahrenheit (42.8 Celsius), shattering the prior record high for the date of 104 degrees set in 1973. In Phoenix, Arizona, the temperature climbed to 118 degrees, 3 degrees above the previous high mark for the date reached in 1968.

With rising demand for air conditioning expected to test the region’s generating capacity, the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid, urged consumers to conserve daytime electricity on Monday.

Forecasters said record-breaking heat would persist through Tuesday, especially in the Desert Southwest, where temperatures could reach as high as 120 degrees.

“These extreme temperatures can be life-threatening,” the Weather Service said on its website.

Fire officials said the heat was a major factor in worsening a wind-driven blaze roaring through dry brush and chaparral about 50 miles east of San Diego, north of the Mexico border, forcing evacuations of dozens of homes in the desert community of Potrero.

The blaze, which erupted Sunday morning, had blackened about 1,500 acres and was still burning unchecked over steep terrain and drought-parched vegetation by evening, San Diego County Fire Captain Kendal Brotisser said.

About 200 miles to the north, excessive heat also continued to plague crews battling the so-called Sherpa Fire, burning for a fifth day in the canyons and foothills near Santa Barbara.

That blaze, which has charred nearly 7,900 acres and forced hundreds of people from their homes, was 51 percent contained as firefighters took advantage of abating “sundowner” winds that had initially propelled the flames.

A much smaller brush fire flared briefly beneath a freeway interchange near downtown Los Angeles, destroying three storage sheds, damaging two homes and snarling traffic in the vicinity as firefighters rushed to douse the blaze.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, local authorities declared a state of emergency due to a five-day-old timber fire that has consumed some 17,615 acres (7,129 hectares) and destroyed about two dozen homes southeast of Albuquerque.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Andrew Bolton and Himani Sarkar)

Wildfires in California, New Mexico trigger evacuations

Handout photo of a firefighter battling the Sherpa Fire in Santa Barbara, California

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Firefighters worked into early Friday morning to try to contain a growing wildfire in coastal Southern California and a larger blaze in rural New Mexico as hot weather fed flames that triggered hundreds of evacuations.

The Sherpa Fire in California grew to about 1,400 acres (560 hectares) overnight after forcing authorities to evacuate 400 homes and businesses and to close part of the 101 Freeway, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and fire information center InciWeb.

About 1,200 firefighters were trying to keep the fire from exploding out of control as airplane tankers and helicopters dropped water, according to officials and online videos.

The blaze, which ignited on Wednesday in a wilderness area northwest of Santa Barbara, has consumed chaparral and tall grass in the Los Padres National Forest, according to InciWeb.

Because of the fire, officials said they had closed two state beaches and some ranch land, forcing out campers and horses.

Southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Dog Head Fire, which broke out on Tuesday about 6 miles (10 km) northwest of the town of Tajique, has also forced evacuations and grown to about 16,000 acres (6,500 hectares) overnight.

Governor Susana Martinez declared a state of emergency and ordered the state’s National Guard to be prepared to assist if needed, according to a statement from her office.

The fire destroyed 24 homes and 21 other structures, InciWeb said.

The blaze has burned through timber in central New Mexico, pushing heavy smoke toward cities more than 100 miles (160 km) away as flames spread through a largely unpopulated area, state fire information officer Peter D’Aquanni said in a phone interview on Thursday.

D’Aquanni said winds could shift the flames to the east as more than 600 firefighters tackle the blaze.

Torrance County Sheriff Heath White said on Thursday that his office was evacuating about 200 people.

The National Weather Service on Friday predicted dry, windy and hot weather for the region through next week, which could lead to more wildfires.

The weather service issued excessive heat warnings for areas in the U.S. Southwest, including California, Nevada and Arizona and New Mexico. Its forecast office in Phoenix predicted temperatures as high as 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48.3 Celsius) in the coming days, which would exceed record highs.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Wildfires in California, New Mexico trigger hundreds of evacuations

Sherpa fire

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hundreds of people have evacuated to escape a wildfire in coastal Southern California and a larger blaze in rural New Mexico as hot weather feeds the flames, raising health concerns in other regions, officials said on Thursday.

Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown told a news conference his deputies had asked occupants of 400 homes and businesses to evacuate structures in areas threatened by flames from the California fire. Campers, and horses on ranches have also been forced out, officials said.

The blaze, which ignited on Wednesday in a wilderness area northwest of Santa Barbara, has consumed chaparral and tall grass in the Los Padres National Forest, blackening some 1,200 acres (490 hectares), according to tracking website InciWeb.gov.

About 500 firefighters were trying to hold it from exploding out of control as airplane tankers and helicopters dropped water, officials said.

“There isn’t a lot of marine layer (ocean humidity) so not great conditions for firefighting,” Diane Black, a joint incident command manager, said in a phone interview.

Winds drove the so-called Sherpa Fire, named after a ranch near where it started, toward the Pacific coast, leading authorities to evacuate two state beaches and some ranch land, according to information from InciWeb.gov and the Santa Barbara County website.

The blaze also approached the 101 Freeway overnight, forcing authorities to close it until Thursday morning.

In New Mexico, the so-called Dog Head Fire which broke out on Wednesday about 6 miles (10 km) northwest of the town of Tajique has forced evacuations and grown to more than 12,000 acres (4,900 hectares).

It has burned through timber in central New Mexico, pushing heavy smoke toward cities more than 100 miles (160 km) away as flames spread through a largely unpopulated area, fire information officer Peter D’Aquanni said in a phone interview.

Torrance County Sheriff Heath White said his office was evacuating about 200 people.

D’Aquanni said that, as more than 600 firefighters tackle the blaze, winds could shift the flames to the east.

“There’s not many structures in front of that direction if it goes where we think it’s going,” he said.

The National Weather Service has issued heat advisories for Missouri and southwest Iowa, with temperatures in the mid-90s Fahrenheit (35 Celsius), climatologist Bryan Peake said in a phone interview.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Environmental Protection Agency Admits Toxic Sludge Will Contaminate Water into Mexico

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is admitting the toxic sludge released into the Animas River by an EPA work crew is going to pollute rivers all the way into Mexico.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted waters will be polluted into Utah, New Mexico, the Navajo Nation reservation and into Mexico.  McCarthy said at a press conference they would use the “full breadth of the agency” to try and clean up their spill.

“We’re working around the clock,” McCarthy said. “It pains me to no end to see this happening.”

While they admitted they are the source of the leak, EPA official say they still don’t know exactly what happened to cause the toxic waste to reach the river.

“We’ve launched an independent investigation to see what happened, and we’ll be taking steps to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” Shaun McGrath, the EPA administrator in charge of the region, told reporters on Monday.

Officials said the Animas River and the San Jan River into which the Animas feeds will be closed to the public at least until August 17th because of the toxic metals in the water.   Durango, Colorado and the New Mexico cities of Aztec and Farmington have been forced to shut off their river intakes for resident water supplies.

The EPA workers also admitted that many of the heavy metals will sink into the sediment of the rivers and could be stirred up when a major storm hits the region causing flooding or increased water flow.

Claims are now being made against the EPA by local residents who have suffered hardship because of the spill.  Under federal law, the EPA is financially responsible for damaged caused by any mistakes made in clean up of toxic sites.

EPA Releases 3 Million Gallons of Toxic Sludge into Southern Colorado River

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is coming under fire after first releasing a toxic plume of contaminated mine water into the Animas River and then misleading the public about the size of the spill.

The EPA initially told the public last week the amount of toxic waste, which had turned the Animas River orange, was one million gallons.   The EPA admitted Sunday the spill was actually closer to three million gallons.

On Sunday, Shaun McGrath of the EPA told reporters in a teleconference that the mine is still spilling 500 gallons of toxic water a minute but that it’s being contained in four lakes near the site of the spill where it can be treated by EPA officials.

EPA tests showed the level of arsenic in the river topped out at 300 times the normal level and lead reached 3,500 times the normal level.  

“Yes, those numbers are high and they seem scary,” Deborah McKean, chief of the EPA Region 8 Toxicology and Human Health and Risk Assessment, told reporters. “But it’s not just a matter of toxicity of the chemicals, it’s a matter of exposure.”

Residents who have water wells near the river have been told not to use their water until they can have it tested for the toxic chemicals.  The toxic sludge has been moving downriver into parts of the Navajo Nation indian reservation and into northwest New Mexico.

The EPA has been criticized by state officials in Colorado and New Mexico for failing to report the incident to them.  New Mexico’s Governor, Susana Martinez, said that the New Mexico government only learned of the spill when local indian nation officials reported something was wrong with the river.

“It’s completely irresponsible for the EPA not to have informed New Mexico immediately,” she said after flying over the affected rivers.

Judge Orders Ten Commandment Display Removed

A federal judge has ordered the city of Bloomfield, New Mexico to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from city property in response to a lawsuit from anti-Christianists.

U.S. District Judge James A. Parker issued a ruling that the 3,000 pound monument violated the First Amendment because its existence meant a government “establishment of religion.”

“In view of the circumstances surrounding the context, history, and purpose of the Ten Commandments monument, it is clear that the City of Bloomfield has violated the Establishment Clause because its conduct in authorizing the continued display of the monument on City property has had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion,” he wrote in his ruling.

The monument was placed in 2011 after the city passed a resolution allowing private citizens the right to post historical displays at the Bloomfield City Hall.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city to make sure the reference to Judaism and Christianity was removed from public view.

“I am surprised and had never really considered the judge ruling against it because it’s a historical document just like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,” Mayor Scott Eckstein said to the Farmington Daily Times. “The intent from the beginning was that the lawn was going to be used for historical purposes, and that’s what the council voted on.”