For evacuees, Las Tusas Fire brings back bad memories of last year

May 11—SAPELLO — The call to evacuate was eerily similar for Northern New Mexico residents still reeling from the effects of the record-setting Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire.

Terry Sprayberry and his girlfriend, Virginia Saiz, got the order Wednesday and spent the night in their car in the parking lot of a Phillips 66 gas station on N.M. 518 in tiny Sapello, about 13 miles north of Las Vegas.

They sat in the car late Thursday morning, watching helicopters dump buckets of water on plumes of smoke from the Las Tusas Fire, which had ignited Wednesday afternoon on private land northwest of the San Miguel County community and spread rapidly to about 1,000 acres in gusty conditions, according to the most recent estimates. It scorched cars and structures and spurred panic among residents of Sapello and surrounding towns who had been through it all before.

The historic, wind-driven Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon blaze, sparked by two federal prescribed burns gone awry, swept through this area last year.

"Yesterday, I go to work. Everything's fine here," said Sprayberry, a transportation company driver. "At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, I get a call from [Saiz] telling me there's smoke over here, just west of our place. I tell her just to keep an eye on it. ... I get to Raton, she's having to evacuate."

He was angered by New Mexico State Police who refused to let him return home to check on his dog, Queenie, as well as his horses and chickens. "My neighbor told me they had to cut my fence to put fire brakes. So, my horses could be anywhere out here," he said.

As someone who had lived for many years in California, Sprayberry never imagined he would have to deal with so many wildfires in New Mexico, he said.

The cause of the new wildfire remains under investigation.

"However this fire started, it had to be something stupid because too many of us know better than to even attempt to burn in wind like this," Sprayberry said.

Evacuation orders were in place Thursday for residents living along N.M. 94 through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and evacuation centers were established at the Abe Montoya Recreation Center and Storrie Lake State Park in Las Vegas.

People gathered at the sites were frightened — concerned about their homes, their neighbors and loved ones, and, like Sprayberry, their pets left behind.

Andrew Vigil said he was barely able to escape his burning home last year as the Hermits Peak blaze raged across his property. He is now living in the Quay County town of McAlister in a single-wide trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as he waits to move back to his ravaged land.

Vigil, 64, has been making efforts to move on.

But the Las Tusas Fire came as a shock.

"To tell you the truth, it's very scary because I already went through this last year. My house burned down, and I barely got out of there," he said. While he is not living near the new fire, he added, "I was concerned [about] my uncle and friends, and [I] haven't eaten because I'm freaked out again because it took me back to my place."

He went to the Abe Montoya Recreation Center on Thursday afternoon and found his 83-year-old uncle Ernesto Martinez and 66-year-old aunt Loretta Gonzales Martinez sitting together.

The two said they lost their house of several decades in a fire a year before the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire struck. Since then, the couple have been living in a camper trailer three miles off N.M. 94.

Gonzales Martinez said she lost her parrot, Neto, to the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. She wasn't certain Thursday if her two dogs and two cats were OK, she said.

Being evacuated yet again left her with a familiar sense of futility.

"[It's] the same feeling — like are you even going to have your house? Do you know if your house is going to be there? ... We don't know if the house is there or not," she said. "We didn't sleep very good last night."

Matthew Garcia, a spokesman with the New Mexico State Forestry Division, said late Thursday afternoon firefighting crews had made progress "holding" the fire and implementing structure protections around vulnerable homes that hadn't yet sustained damage.

"It's still estimated at 1,000 acres, but we'll be having [an] infrared aircraft fly the perimeter of the fire to get a better acreage — they'll map the fire ... kind of pick up where all the hot spots are," Garcia said.

A new update on federal, state and local efforts to battle the blaze with a "full suppression strategy" — now under the command of a Type 3 Incident Management Team — was expected Friday morning, he said.

A State Forestry Division report listed resources from multiple agencies: "2 Hotshot crews, 1 Type 2 IA Handcrew, 4 dozers, 6 engines, multiple volunteer engines, 1 Type 3 Helicopter. Additional resources such as an air attack, hotshot crews, engines and infrared mapping aircraft have been ordered by the team to bolster the firefighting effort."

Garcia had no estimates for how many structures the Las Tusas Fire had already burned but said San Miguel County officials had begun assessing the damage.

While crews faced high winds Thursday, the gusts were expected to ease in the evening and through Friday, allowing better opportunities to contain the blaze.

"And then, hopefully, Saturday that cold front that's coming in will help us ... cool down the daytime temperatures, which will give firefighters a better chance to put the fire out," Garcia said.

The Las Tusas Fire is the second to ignite this week in an area struggling to recover from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. The Las Cocas Fire in Mora County was largely contained Wednesday and remained at just 58 acres, fire officials reported.

"How does lightning strike the same place twice?" wondered Michael Jones, a volunteer working at the Abe Montoya Recreation Center on Thursday. "Unfortunately, we got people that — they lost everything once again. ... It's really heartbreaking."

Jones said he had spoken with about 20 people by early Thursday afternoon. The Las Tusas Fire was "traumatizing" for nearby communities," he said, calling them resilient.

He had driven to Las Vegas from his home in Las Cruces to help support those affected by the wildfire, Jones said, adding he got the news of the Las Tusas blaze Wednesday night, was on the highway by 1 a.m. and had not slept as of Thursday afternoon.

"I'm going to work with the people until I go get me something to eat, and then — if this place fills up — I'm going to be here working with them until my body tells me, 'Hey, you have no choice. It's time for you to go lay it down,' " Jones said.