1. New Mexico Burning

    Posted in: Photography on Monday, June 27th, 2011

    highway 30 new mexico

    New Mexico this June is hot, dry, and on fire.  We’re visiting friends in Santa Fe and for the three days we’ve been here we’ve watched the smoke from a fire in the mountains to the East and slightly North.  It is off in the distance and the wind is taking the flames away from Santa Fe, and away from the forefront of our consciousness.

    where there's smoke there's trouble

    Then today a fire to the West of us broke out.  The last report I saw put the size of the Las Conchas fire at 3,500 acres and zero per cent contained.  It is 12 miles Southwest of Los Alamos, the city where many of the country’s nuclear weapons are designed, including our first two atomic bombs, Fatman and Little Boy.  I spent the afternoon and evening watching the giant plume of smoke from the fire move across the sky causing the sun to pay peek a boo with the people in Santa Fe.

    The fire burns out of control

    Residents in many small communities and at Bandelier National Monument are being evacuated.  Authorities have asked resident in Los Alamos to consider a voluntary evacuation.  Now that the sun has gone down, the winds are dying down which will hopefully slow the spread of the fire.

    at sunset it looks as if the sky above los alamos is on fire

    the lights of los alamos off to the right of the approaching flames

    Tags: , , ,