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 Pre-Evac Notices for Vallecito Residents
10/18/2012 By: Carole McWilliams
Vallecito Fire - Friday evening update
Firefighters had another good day and the fire is now 15% contained. There was a small amount of growth on the north end – maybe 20 acres – when winds picked up mid-afternoon, but it was within the containment line created by the retardant drops. Firefighters reported moderate fire behavior. The bulldozer line was completed on the south end of the fire, tying it into Lakeview Drive. On Saturday, bulldozers will begin building a fire break on the north end of the fire area near Ho Hum Drive and Hummingbird Lane.
Pre-evacuation alerts remain in effect for the 18 residences in Lake Vista Estates. No other notices have been issued.
See more fire photos on our Facebook page.
Friday night sports update: Bayfield Wolverine soccer team wins its final game of the season, 2-0 against Ridgway! Read Joel Priest's story in next Friday's Pine River Times.
Friday morning update from the U.S. Forest Service:
Thursday night’s infrared flight measured the Vallecito fire at 201 acres.
Two heavy airtankers and two helicopters will be available to assist firefighters today with retardant and water drops as needed. The 20-person Zuni initial attack crew was released this morning and is being reassigned to the Little East fire.
Today, firefighters will be looking for an area near Ho Hum Drive and Hummingbird Lane where they can build some indirect line in the event the fire was to move north.
Pre-evacuation alerts remain in effect for the 18 residences in Lake Vista Estates. No other notices have been issued.
The fire, which was reported on Oct. 16, is burning to the west of Vallecito Reservoir and County Road 501, and is about one mile from the Vallecito community.
Our story from Thursday, Oct. 18:
Eighteen homes in Lake Vista Estates got pre-evacuation notices Wednesday afternoon when the Vallecito fire got within a half mile of the closest home at the top end of Lakeview Drive.
Erratic high winds made conditions too dangerous Wednesday to fight the fire from the air.
The fire, thought to be caused by lightning, started Oct. 16 in the upper part of the Jack Creek drainage, terrain previously burned in the 2002 Missionary Ridge Fire. Many of the 28 homes burned at Vallecito in 2002 were in Lake Vista Estates.
Crews with the Stanislas Hot Shots were parked by homes in the subdivision early Wednesday evening, and local firefighters and engines were stationed in the meadow near the house closest to the fire.
Many more local firefighters and engines were on stand-by below Pura Vida Café to go protect homes if needed.
Upper Pine Fire Chief Bruce Evans and Columbine Ranger District wildland fire manager Chris Tipton gave updates and fielded questions from Vallecito residents at a community meeting Wednesday evening.
There was a lot of confusion about where the meeting actually was. Residents gathered in front of an office building known as The Outpost, just south of The Schank House restaurant. Eventually Evans and Tipton showed up, and everyone packed inside.
Evans denied rumors that firefighters were being blocked from drawing water out of the reservoir, which as of last week held 39,000 acre feet. “We’ve been dipping water out of the lake,” he said.
Tipton said that as of Wednesday evening the fire was estimated at 200 to 250 acres. “We aren’t seeing rapid explosive fire behavior,” he said. It was moving with the wind.
“We have a lot of structure protection in place,” Tipton said. “The wind has died down. But we expect to be with this fire for a while, until the weather changes. … By the middle of next week, there’s a low to moderate probability of moisture, but before that will be wind.”
It is burning log to log in downed timber, he said. “It’s very complex topography. All that plays into what the wind does.”
Air tankers coming from Albuquerque were dealing with 100 mph winds on Wednesday, and practice runs over the fire got progressively more dangerous, so they were called off, Tipton said.
At around 5 p.m. by Pura Vida, there was little wind. An hour later at the top of Lake View Drive, there was a lot of wind, at least for a short time.
The hope at the Wednesday evening meeting was that two heavy air tankers could start runs at 8 a.m. Thursday to get as many slurry drops as possible before wind kicked up.
But that was not certain. Tipton said two tankers had been ordered for Thursday, along with a heavy helicopter from Fort Collins that can draft water without landing.
But there are competing demands elsewhere, including a new fire near Mancos that was threatening homes Wednesday, and a fire in the Black Hills.
“We feel we have a high probability of getting at least one air tanker,” Tipton said. “Two were on order for today from Albuquerque. We couldn’t fly because of the wind. They went to the fire in the Black Hills.”
Protecting homes and infrastructure are the focus on the Vallecito fire, Tipton said. He and Evans said they have pre-planned trigger points when a certain response will start, such as pre-evacuation notices.
The first was when the fire reached one-fourth to one-third of a mile from the house at the end of Lake View Drive. But Tipton said, “We haven’t seen a high rate of spread that would warrant concern. The fuels aren’t conducive to that.”
Fire managers had identified a ridge where a dozer might be run on Thursday to create a fire line, he said, and aerial slurry retardant would be aimed there to protect the Ho Hum Drive area.
Evans said, “Upper Pine crews have spent two days assessing every home on Ho Hum Drive. We are doing structure triage. We are planning for the worst-case scenario. We don’t think it will get there.”
“We have a lot of resources coming in,” Tipton said. “They got a dozer on the fire’s edge tonight (Wednesday), but the wind shifted and pushed them out.”
Evans urged residents who have any sort of phone other than a land line to go on the county web site www.co.laplata.co.us. There is a place to register those other phones to receive reverse 911 calls, such as evacuation notices.
He also urged residents, either by neighborhood or the whole community, to organize and create community wildfire protection plans, so Upper Pine can seek grant money to help do the mitigation.
Forest Lakes and the Deer Valley subdivision east of Bayfield have been the leaders in that, he said.
Tipton urged residents to be alert and communicate with each other. “If there’s an evacuation notice, you should leave,” he said.
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