Blog Archives
important notice(s)
I cannot speak to the information on the sign on the left.
But I did enjoy the way the Fire Victims sign seems to have elbowed its way into the discussion.
The fire the attorneys are talking about raged across northern New Mexico from April-August 2022, burning over 340,000 acres. The Hermits Peak fire began in early April, when the the US Forest Service lost control of a prescribed burn; three days later the Calf Canyon fire started when an improperly extinguished Forest Service pile burn (from three months earlier!) rekindled. On April 22, as a result of a “major wind event” the two fires burned together and eventually became the largest wildfire in the state. So anyway, those attorneys are probably still pretty busy.
And if you were wondering what that might have looked like from a distance, here’s a photo I made on May 15, 2022, near Chimayó. The fire was so intense that it developed its own weather system, called pyrocumulonimbus. It was awful. But also magnificent, in a way.
Mora, New Mexico
photographed 11.9.2025
where there is smoke
I could not look away. For an entire day, no matter where I was, my eyes sought out the awful (yet strangely beautiful) smoke from nearby forest fires.
The fires were so intense that by the end of the day they would have created their own weather system, clouds known as pyrocumulonimbus, which contain lightning storms that can in turn ignite more fires. An article in Scientific American says, when you see these clouds, “you know you’ve got big trouble below.”
near Chimayó, New Mexico
photographed 5.15.2022
One Day | One Image 