Firefighting operations on the Pino Fire are gradually intensifying to take advantage of predicted favorable weather. It is expected that conditions on Tuesday, September 2 will be optimal for aerial and hand ignitions to direct fire to holding and control features. Management of the wildfire is under the direction of a Type 3 Incident Management organization.
The lightning caused fire, on Santa Fe National Forest’s Jemez Ranger District, is now estimated at 132 acres. The fire is located five miles south of State Highway 4 and six miles east of Jemez Springs. The wildfire is being managed for resource benefit. Yesterday fire crews introduced fire on the ground strategically to direct the wildfire in the desired direction. Today firefighters were monitoring, patrolling and taking actions to confine the wildfire where necessary.
There is a chance that the Jemez Mountain Electric Co-op's overhead power line that runs from Ponderosa to Sierra de Los Pinos will be impacted by the fire, if that does occur the Co-op can and will reroute the service with a short window of service outage, this could also affect telephone service and access to the 911 system. In the event of power and telephone service outage there will be USFS and La Cueva Fire Department emergency personnel at the La Cueva Fire station on Forest Road 10 to assist anyone experiencing an emergency.
Lee Taylor, Chief
La Cueva District
Sandoval County FD