{"id":40961,"date":"2012-06-14T21:22:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-15T03:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=40961"},"modified":"2012-06-14T21:22:47","modified_gmt":"2012-06-15T03:22:47","slug":"state-officials-dispute-account-in-swickard-column-about-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/06\/state-officials-dispute-account-in-swickard-column-about-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"State officials dispute account in Swickard column about fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/06\/time-to-fire-the-political-fire-managers\/\" target=\"_blank\">his column<\/a> this week, Michael Swickard argues that it\u2019s \u201ctime to fire the political fire managers\u201d who he says made \u201cthe political decision\u201d to let the Little Bear Fire near Ruidoso continue as a controlled burn instead of putting it out quickly.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not what state officials say happened. Gov. Susana Martinez and Eddie Tudor, bureau chief of resource management for New Mexico forestry, held a news conference in Ruidoso to try to stop the spread of rumors. Here\u2019s Tudor, as quoted by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ruidosonews.com\/ruidoso-breaking_news\/ci_20849405\/officials-move-quash-little-bear-fire-rumors\" target=\"_blank\">Ruidoso News<\/a>:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c\u2018The question has come up, why wasn\u2019t water used, why wasn\u2019t a bucket drop used,\u2019 he said. Because of the elevation of the fire, 10,500 feet above sea level, helicopters were unable to respond with standard equipment, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA helicopter had been sent up to the fire within hours of its detection to shuttle the Sacramento Hotshots up to the slopes to begin suppression, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Water was never denied on the fire, it was never rejected on the fire, it just had to be taken in a different manner because of the altitude,\u2019 he said. \u2018At that altitude it\u2019s really difficult to get equipment off the ground and safely carry it.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe judgment call on safety was left in the hands of the experts, the pilots, he said. \u2018They tried to get off the ground and they just couldn\u2019t do it. Quite frankly, we\u2019ve had some tough weather days up there.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Swickard, whose information came from an area volunteer fire chief, argued that the state should take over fire management from the federal government because the federal government was making political decisions.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alamogordonews.com\/ci_20824277\/pearce-expresses-outrage-blame-at-forest-service-little\" target=\"_blank\">made similar claims<\/a> to those made by Swickard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his column this week, Michael Swickard argues that it\u2019s \u201ctime to fire the political fire managers\u201d who he says made \u201cthe political decision\u201d to let the Little Bear Fire near Ruidoso continue as a controlled burn instead of putting it out quickly. That\u2019s not what state officials say happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147,116],"class_list":["post-40961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-environment","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}