Ignitions are complete on the Peggy fire for a total of 886 acres.
We had hot and dry conditions in the morning and early afternoon. This allowed us to finish bringing fire down into deer creek drainage and also strip out the remainder of the interior green pockets.
The good burning conditions in the morning and early afternoon resulted in outstanding fire effects. We held off on our last pass until mid-afternoon because of fire behavior in the interior. When we made the last pass we had cloud cover and it was just about to start raining. The last of ignitions did not have as good of fire effects compared to the morning but fire was established in the heavies within the p/j. As the crew was taking fire on the last pass it began to rain and then the rain picked up leaving about a ¼ to ½ inch of rainfall at the very end. Interesting timing.
The Abajo crew will finish their 14 days tomorrow and will help us with fire effects monitoring for the Wildfire Outcome report to claim the acres. Black Canyon and the Jemez Eagles will be on scene to hold and patrol. I transitioned to Brian Bolser this evening as ICT4 and he will be on the fire for the coming days.
We needed every resource we had on this fire and they all did an outstanding job. We came together as a team and performed in some tough conditions over the last 10 days.
We had a 100% safety record. We protected cultural sites, improved range conditions and made some great wildlife habitat improvements. Most importantly, there is now over a mile wide fuel break extending down to FR 376 that connects to the San Diego Rx unit above from 9 years ago. The Rio Guadalupe corridor is at high risk for high severity fire as it is aligned with slope and prevailing wind direction. Anything coming from the east in the future will have a hard time getting around this burn area. This, in conjunction with the mechanical and RX fire work being done in the Chaparral NEPA area will create a desired condition of heterogeneity that will aid in preventing an uncharacteristic high severity fire in the future.
There is still a lot of work to do. And there are many dedicated folks working to get these treatments in place.
I want to thank Terrance Gallegos, Bill King and Brandon Hess for allowing me this opportunity to manage this fire and always looking out for me in my career.
I want to thank our agency administrators for the trust and support, and also for coming to tour the fire area.
I want to thank the specialists for their flexibly and support of the kind of work we are doing. I think they all know what is at stake.
I want to thank dispatch with their patience, long hours and constant support.
We have a good team on this forest and I look forward to working with everyone to keep getting work done.
Thanks
Dennis Carril
Fire Ecology/Fuels
Forest Service
Santa Fe National Forest
p: 505-438-5345
c: 618-920-6221
dcarril@fs.fed.us
11 Forest Lane
Santa Fe, NM 87508
www.fs.fed.us
Caring for the land and serving people