Friday, July 26, 2024

Location: Northwest corner of the Santa Fe National Forest in the Cuba Ranger District, approximately 27 miles north of Cuba, NM.

Start Date: July 18, 2024

Size: 2,745 acres with a planned perimeter of 7,000 acres

Percent completed: 35 %

Cause: Lightning

Vegetation: The wildfire is burning in ponderosa pine, pinyon-juniper, and oak.

Resources: 36 personnel including aerial resources

Overview: Santa Fe National Forest will manage the fire as a Type 3 incident with a confine and contain strategy.  This means crews will manage the fire within a predetermined area (confine) and use points to stop the fire’s spread (contain). To accomplish this strategy, crews will conduct firing operations using aerial and hand ignitions within a 7000-acre planned perimeter as early as July 25 and use roads, hand lines, and natural barriers as containment lines.

The fire is burning in the Moya National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) project area and a landscape that has been thinned and treated with prescribed fire in the past. The primary objectives for the Tanques Wildfire are to provide for firefighter and public safety and improve wildlife habitat.

Highlights: Fire held within the fire perimeter overnight. Today, aerial ignitions, conducted by a helicopter, continue within the project area. Crews are managing fire activity and preparing for thunderstorms later this evening.

Weather: After a relatively calm night Thursday night, an uptick in afternoon thunderstorm activity in the fire area is forecast Friday through the weekend.

Closure Order: A temporary area and road closure is in effect to protect the public’s health and safety during firefighting operations for the Tanques Wildfire. The closure order is available on the Santa Fe National Forest’s website – Closure Order 03-10-02-24-11 .

Safety: The health and safety of firefighter and the public are always the highest priority. Please avoid the area while crews manage the Tanques Wildfire. Drones and firefighting aircraft are a dangerous mix and could lead to accidents or slow down wildfire operations. If you fly, we can’t.

Smoke: Smoke may be visible from communities along Highway 112 including El Vado and Llaves, NM and from the Jicarilla Apache Nation Indian Reservation. View an interactive smoke map on AirNow Fire and Smoke Map. To learn more about smoke impacts visit Wildfire and Prescribed Fire Smoke Resources (nm.gov).

Fire Information:

Contact Claudia Brookshire, Public Affairs Officer, Santa Fe National Forest

Phone: 505-607-0879 (available from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm)

Email: claudia.brookshire@usda.gov

Links: Santa Fe National Forest website, New Mexico Fire Info, Inciweb, and Santa Fe National Forest social media (Facebook and X).

Tanques Wildfire updates will be provided weekly.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — There’s a local man who’s been skyrocketing to stardom, simply by making videos about New Mexico’s unique culture.

Phrases and things only New Mexicans know. Johnny James is sharing with the world:

• “Down here in New Mexico, we got our own way of doing things. And we DEFINITELY got our own way of saying things.”
• “You wanna go check out that new chicken place that just opened up real quick, errr what?”
• “The classic New Mexican phrase…ombers.”

Johnny James is an unintended influencer, having some fun with his own culture. He started making videos on social media during the pandemic. There’s a certain unfiltered authenticity that has garnered him hundreds of thousands of followers.

“I started making videos from a real point of view, from us down here, for us down here. And it just cracked off,” he said.

Johnny’s life hasn’t always been something you’d want to share online.

“Totally fair to say. Straight up, I’ll be all the way honest… from like 13 to when it was done, I grew up in the streets selling dope,” he said. “I got kicked out of school in the 11th grade. Had my ‘jito when I was 16. I always kinda credit him for shifting my trajectory.”

Now, at 39 years old, Johnny has four boys and has a career in music, podcasting, cannabis and, one that he hates to admit, influencing.

He knows having an influence can be a good thing.

“If I can be like, look… we have similar backgrounds but if you take a different route, look where we are now,” he said.

Johnny is using it good. Recently, he started a GoFundMe to raise money for people affected by the Ruidoso fires and flooding. As expected, New Mexicans have turned out, raising more than $70,000.

People know Johnny. When we cruised Central with him in his ’64 Impala lowrider, many people spotted him from a mile away so we had to stop a few times.

See the full cruise and story in the video above.

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved a stipulated agreement which is expected to result in a rate increase for customers.  The stipulated agreement is between New Mexico Gas Company and various consumer and environmental advocates. The gas utility initially asked for the ability to collect nearly $49 million in additional revenue from customers. The […]

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved a stipulated agreement which is expected to result in a rate increase for customers. 

The stipulated agreement is between New Mexico Gas Company and various consumer and environmental advocates. The gas utility initially asked for the ability to collect nearly $49 million in additional revenue from customers. The stipulated agreement reduced that to $30 million.

The rate increase will go into effect in October.

Commissioner James Ellison said he supports the stipulated agreement. He also expressed concerns that this is at least the fourth time in eight years that a rate case involving NM Gas Co. has been resolved through a stipulated agreement.

“I do think it’s also reasonable to ask how many stipulations in a row would we like to see before we’d like to have a litigated case,” he said.

He said the advantages of a stipulation is that it provides a mutually acceptable resolution, especially in cases where there are multiple intervening parties. That makes it unlikely that any party will appeal the ruling.

“But I do think with the litigated case, there is more scrutiny,” he said.

Commission Chairman Patrick O’Connell said he believes there’s value in both litigated cases and in stipulated agreements.

“If you just settle, settle, settle, who knows what’s buried in the trajectory there,” he said.

He said the best way to learn all the details is to have the transparency that a litigated process brings.

“Having said that, I think probably, if we have concerns about that, I think we’ll want to somehow signal that ahead of when they file their next case,” O’Connell said.

Ellison said that NM Gas Co. has indicated that the lower increase in revenue will mean that some of the projects it is undertaking, such as replacing meters, will be done more slowly. However, he said, the utility is not canceling any projects required for pipeline safety or compliance with federal regulations.

“I do take the company at its word here that they’re going to replace the 90-year-old uncoated steel pipeline first, and if they need to delay something, they’re going to delay projects that are more discretionary like the meter replacements,” he said.

Commissioner Gabriel Aguilera said that there is not 100 percent visibility about which projects will be performed using the $30 million additional revenue and which ones are going to be delayed because of the reduced amount in the stipulated agreement.

“But I received some assurance from the explanation that the projects that are needed for reliability and safety will be the ones that will be pursued here,” he said.

At the same time, Aguilera said that he does not anticipate that the projects NM Gas Co. initially requested money for will go away. He said those projects will now be delayed due to the smaller revenue increase.

“I anticipate that they will be back before us with similar if not the same projects,” he said.