Echoes of the Cerro Grande wildfire 22 years later

Tom Ribe, wildland firefighter and author of “Inferno by Committee,” a book about the Cerro Grande fire, said he sees plenty of parallels so far between what happened in 2000 and what happened in early April this year.

The Forest Service’s prescribed burn was “extremely risky,” he said. He recommends agencies only do prescribed burns in the very early spring or the late fall. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recently called on the federal government to change its prescribed burn rules for the Southwest for that same reason.

In 2000, when the Park Service lost control of Cerro Grande, condemnation was swift about the timing, in particular. Many called the Park Service officials “amateurs,” Ribe said.

“The Forest Service piled on with that, too,” at the time, Ribe said. “And now we’re seeing that anybody can do it. Anybody can make a mistake.”