Fire destroys multiple properties

BOSQUE FARMS — He was at the right place at the right time.

Isaac Ford, 14, was fishing along the ditch west of Lillie Drive in the village of Bosque Farms last Thursday when he saw a lot of smoke coming from the west side of the river.

“A lot, lot of smoke and ash raining down where I was,” Ford said in an early morning phone interview on Tuesday. “I got on my bike and rode over to where the ash was coming from. There was a giant fire on the (west) side of the river.”

The Peralta teenager called his mother, Megan Ford, to see if she knew whether the blaze had been reported, but it hadn’t.

“I was getting on my bike and the fire jumped the river. It was spreading fast and I needed to get out of there,” Isaac recalls.

His mother told him he needed to call 911 and report the fire, but he wasn’t exactly sure which street he was on or how to tell emergency responders where the fire was located. The family lives on the very northern edge of the town of Peralta, where the boundaries of the two towns meet.

“I had to know for certain someone reported it. I have a lot of friends who live there,” he said.

When Isaac spotted someone out in their yard, he asked them to call 911 about the fire so he could meet firefighters at the ditchbank gate. That decision probably prevented the fire from becoming worse than it could have been, Megan said.

“I’m proud of him for meeting the fire department at the gate. When they first arrived, from their viewpoint, they could only see the fire on the west side (of the river) and thought it was still on Isleta. He was able to take them and show them where it was on the Bosque Farms side,” she said. “I think his quick action allowed them to get water on it quicker, which was a great help to the community.”

Community comes together

As residents worried and waited for the winds to calm down and the Rio Grande Fire be contained, those who could worked to protect their own properties, including Mike Powers, the News-Bulletin’s sports writer.

Powers lives south of Lillie Drive, west of W. Bosque Loop, the area hit worst by the fire, with his wife, Pat, and cat, Amelia. He had just returned home from covering an assignment when he saw the smoke in his neighborhood.

“Pat and I were watching television a little after 4 p.m. when Pat saw a large plume of smoke out the window,” Mike said. “We scrambled outside and the whole area to the west was covered in a cloud of smoke. It was obvious a fire a had broken out somewhere around the bosque and close by.”

Mike said it was also clear that with the very high winds, this fire could be really bad.

“It was scary as hell,” he said. “Soon, we had our first of dozens of conversations with our neighbors, each of us trying to gather information. Our neighbors were wonderful, sharing with us what they knew or heard, offering to help anyway they could.

“I grabbed my VCNB camera gear and headed toward the smoke on foot. Emergency crews arrived shortly before I did. From a safe distance, I could see an outbuilding near one home on fire, with at least one cottonwood tree ablaze,” he reported. “On a nearby property, another outbuilding was engulfed, with horses in the corral starting to show concern. A water truck had arrived and was spraying the area, including the grass field that was adjacent.”

By that time, there was a full emergency response. Mike decided it was time to head home to protect his property.

The longtime Bosque Farms resident said he saw one neighbor had climbed onto his home’s roof with a hose to spray it down. Mike continued to run their irrigation in the pasture, but that ended when the electricity went out, shutting down the pump.

“I took out our hose and tried to spray down the house as best I could, the face of it as well as the roof; however, the wind was whipping so badly, back and forth, it made it really difficult,” he described. “We gathered up our essentials, important papers, medications, just in case we had to evacuate quickly.”

Essential information was sometimes challenging to gather, Mike said. Internet was spotty and the electricity was out, so his neighbors shared what they had learned, and family members and friends would call and send texts with details about what they needed to know.

“Others were checking in on us out of concern for our safety. It was heartwarming and inspiring,” he said. “Pat and I will always be thankful.”

Aside from family safety, Mike could see the concern for the animals in everyone — from livestock to pet kitties and birds. A small parade of jittery horses was guided down the street, with the owner and a neighbor leading them several blocks to an awaiting trailer to take them to safety. One family took their own large horse trailer out to help others who needed to move their animals quickly.

“As the darkness set in, it was difficult to tell if the glow in the bosque was from emergency lights or fire. The smoke and smell from the fire remained well into the morning, as the immediate danger seemed to pass,” Mike said. “The sound of a chainsaw, presumably cutting down trees in the bosque, was heard much of the night. There was a definite sense of relief when the electricity came back on about 10:30 p.m.”

As firefighters and first responders worked all night to save as many properties as they could, the community was also working long into the night to make sure people were safe and secure as well.

Rose Poitras, the director of the Bosque Farms Community Center, heard the news of the fire after she had returned home from work. She immediately called Bosque Farms Mayor Chris Gillespie and threw together a quick “go bag” and went back to open the center for whatever it could be used.

Her husband, Scott, said he called to check on her every few hours. On the first check in, “she had a handful of people that couldn’t get home; several volunteers, including some prominent Bosque Farms leaders and many firefighters coming in for rest and water breaks.”

At his last check in for the night, at about 10:30 p.m., Scott Poitras said the community center had become a “bivouac for firefighters. She had lined up several volunteers to work in shifts throughout the night.”

Fast-moving winds drive flames

The fire started at 3:53 p.m., Thursday, April 17, west of the Rio Grande and Bosque Farms on Isleta land.

George Ducker, the communications coordinator for New Mexico State Forestry, said the flames were moved by fast-moving winds to the east side of the river and into the Bosque Farms area.

Fire crews from Bosque Farms, Valencia County, Peralta, Los Lunas, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Bernalillo County, Santa Fe County, Cibola County, Sandoval County, Cochiti Lake, the N.M. Forestry Division and more descended on the small farming community to try and stop the flames.

Because of the ongoing threat, residents living off West Bosque Loop between Lillie and Cottonwood Drive were asked to evacuate.

When crews arrived, Ducker said the fire “had already intermixed with structures...”

Ducker sent out a second update at about 11:45 a.m., Friday, April 18, saying the fire had ripped through about 60 acres, and the cause is still being investigated. Initially, he estimated the fire to have burned 150 acres.

“Response crews worked through the night on the Rio Grande Fire and were able to raise the containment percentage to 10 percent. Two divisions were established on the north and south sides of the fire, which had moved into the vegetation alongside the Bosque Farms community,” Ducker wrote.

According to a Facebook post by the Bosque Farms Police Department at about 9 p.m. Thursday, April 17, “three structures were a total loss while (two) others were damaged and approximately (eight) out buildings were a loss as well.”

The fire department reported several residents in the area of Dolly Lane and Truchas Trail were also asked to evacuate.

“The fire has been contained to the bosque while fire crews are still active in the area ... and extinguishing hot spots. Evacuations at this time are halted. More updates as (the) situation evolves.”

A final update from Ducker was released on Saturday, April 19, with the 59-acre fire at 60 percent containment.

“Fire activity continued to decrease, although interior heat was found in heavy fuels causing ember wash. Evacuations were lifted for the area,” the update read. “Today, some resources are being released, and remaining crews will be focused on extinguishing interior heat. This will be the final notification on this fire unless there are significant changes.”

New agreement sped up response time

Valencia County Fire Chief Matt Propp said after the call for a smoke check in the Bosque Farms area came in, the situation evolved very quickly.

“Bosque Farms and Peralta responded and we committed resources quickly, including our wildland crew,” Propp said. “We are part of a new mutual aid agreement called the Metro Chiefs Agreement, which is almost statewide.

“Within 10 to 15 minutes of the fire, the city of Santa Fe reached out, saying they had resources ready to go right now. I say yes because we knew this would be an expanding incident.”

Prior to the new agreement, local fire departments would have to wait until state involvement in a large incident so that an agency like New Mexico State Forestry could put out a request for resources.

“That would have added two to three hours to the response time had we not had the metro chiefs agreement,” he said. “It got resources into the county very quickly.”

The Valencia County Commission held an emergency meeting last Friday morning and unanimously approved a resolution to declare a local emergency in response to the Rio Grande Fire.

The resolution allows the county to access resources and reimbursement for expenses it incurs while fighting the fire.

At the meeting, Propp said according to information he’d received, 12 structures were lost in the fire, including houses, outbuildings, barns and garages.

(News-Bulletin staff writers Clara Garcia, Julia M. Dendinger and Mike Powers contributed to this report.)