Local News

The Thompson Ridge wildfire that's charred nearly 24,000 acres in the Jemez Mountains west of Los Alamos during the past two weeks is now 80 percent contained with little growth in new fire activity, according to a Monday morning update.

For the third consecutive day fire activity was restricted to unburned fuels within the interior where a total of four acres have burned since Friday. Minimal fire activity is expected today as crews continue rehab, mop up and patrol of the perimeter.

The Arizona Central West Zone Incident Management Team will be joined on the line by members of the Albuquerque Zone Type III Incident Management Team who will assume management of the fire at 6:00 am Tuesday.

The fire will continue to smolder through the interior where unburned fuels remain. Interior fire potential will increase Wednesday and Thursday with increasing temperatures and drying southwest winds.

Rehabilitation of fire damage will be addressed by the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team. Specialists of different disciplines will work with the various agencies and pueblos affected by the fire to assess damage and recommend actions.

All points of entry to the Valles Caldera National Preserve are closed to public access due to fire activity. The Fenton Lake State Park is also closed to the public.

The head of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department and members of the state Game Commission don’t like the idea of turning over management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service.
They met with representatives from U.S. Sen. Tom Udall’s office on Friday to discuss pending federal legislation concerning the 89,000-acre preserve in northern New Mexico.
Udall and retired Sen. Jeff Bingaman first proposed the transfer in 2010 in hopes of getting more consistent funding to preserve the area.
The federal government bought the former cattle ranch just west of Los Alamos in 2000. It’s a popular spot for hiking and fishing.
Department of Game and Fish representatives, including Director Jim Lane and State Game Commissioners, met Friday with representatives of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall to discuss the Department’s concerns with proposed legislation that would transfer management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service.

For someone who says she does not like change, Shirley Huber, office specialist for the Information Management Department, has seen more than her share of it in her 47 years with Los Alamos County.

“I started November 15, 1965,” Huber says without hesitation.

Huber’s first position was as a clerk typist in the finance department. That changed when the county decided to start its own IBM section, the forerunner of today’s IM Department.

When some of the staff went to Zia Company to see the new equipment, Huber began playing with the keypunch machines. That caught the attention of Merle Pawley, who contacted Huber’s supervisor. Huber was trained on keypunch and verifier machines and became one member of the three-person staff in the new IBM section.

Keypunch machines were a critical component in those days. The machines precisely punched holes into punch cards based on what the operator entered. Those cards contained the data the computers processed. Verifiers were used to verify that the correct information was entered on the punched cards.

Needless to say, a lot could go wrong with that system.