Cerro Grande Fire - Prelude

Prelude

Although wildfire is a natural part of the ecosystem of western forests, fire suppression began to be widespread in the late 19th century just as land-use patterns (e.g. intensive grazing) limited the cover which had formerly sustained and been sustained by low-intensity ground fires. High-density stands of small trees and thick underbrush permitted a natural periodic ground fire to leap into a high-intensity crown fire. There followed a century of fire suppression, during which large fires occurred on the Pajarito Plateau approximately every twenty years: an 1896 fire, several fires in the 1920s, a fire in 1946, the 1954 Water Canyon Fire, the 1977 La Mesa Fire, and the 1996 Dome Fire.

The 1977 La Mesa Fire served as a wake-up call: it burned 15,000 acres (60 km²) in Bandelier National Monument, but accelerated a change in attitudes within the National Park Service toward managing fire. On Bandelier National Monument, firebreaks were improved, as were fuel breaks, and in some areas trees were thinned. The 1996 Dome Fire burned 16,500 acres (67 km2) in nine days and threatened the southern section of Los Alamos National Laboratory. With flame lengths of hundreds of feet, the Dome fire was spectacular and it underscored the problems of passivity and neglect. The Interagency Wildfire Management Team was formed by representatives of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos County, Bandelier National Monument, Santa Fe National Forest, State of New Mexico, and Pueblo agencies.

No amount of planning could control the weather, which provided abnormally high precipitation in the early-to-mid-1990s, followed by several years of severe drought. The consequence of these effects was that by 2000, conditions were nearly ideal for a major forest fire on the plateau. Deadfall in the forest had a moisture content lower than that of well-cured firewood. The heavy rains and snows of the mid-1990s had produced luxuriant undergrowth, while the onset of drought toward the end of the decade had dried it out and made it flammable. The stage was set for exactly what happened at Cerro Grande.