I Used to Monitor Threat Feeds for a Living. Now I Monitor the Air.
Six named wildfires are burning in New Mexico right now. Two of them — Sacaton, in the Gila Wilderness, and the one at Beehive, outside Tres Piedras — are still actively growing. Sacaton has covered 8,638 acres as of this week and sits at zero percent contained. Zero. Not "early stages of containment." Zero. Meanwhile, the monsoon that's supposed to end this — the one that officially started June 15 and is forecast to bring above-normal rain to most of the state — is also, right now, part of the problem: both of those fires started from dry lightning during the exact transition window before the rain volume shows up. The thing that saves you starts by making it worse first. I have pulmonary fibrosis and bronchiectasis. My lungs are already scarred and already can't clear themselves properly. That's not a metaphor and I'm not looking for a reaction to it — it's just the starting condition I'm working from when I read a fire report the way I used to re...
