4 Investigates: The prescribed burns that started the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire

“They are professionals, and I respect that very much, but obviously it was a risky thing to do given the dryness of this year,” said Tom Ribe, a fire scholar.

Ribe worked for the National Park Service for years doing prescribed burns in California and in New Mexico. He lived in New Mexico for most of his life and even wrote a book on the 2000 prescribed burn that turned into the Cerro Grande wildfire near Los Alamos. “I can’t imagine that the place was, as we call, ‘in prescription,’ which means that the conditions were right to do this,” Ribe said.