Firefighters are making good progress in battling the Black Feather Wildfire in the Santa Fe National Forest.
The blaze remains at just under 22-hundred acres and is now 22-percent contained.
During a community meeting last night at Coronado High School, Operations Chief Craig Daugherty said they can’t send firefighters into the thickest part of the forest where the fire is burning for safety reasons.
“Sometimes the stuff’s three to four feet deep of just jack strawed, dead and downed trees that have blown down through the years,” he said. “That’s the main reason we haven’t been in here since last week since we’ve been ol those fires. You’ve seen everyday in the afternoon with the thunderstorm development. We never want to base our plan on aircraft. We do have an aircraft that’s able to swing somebody out of (the thick forest) but our concern is with the weather we’ve had we might not be able to fly in there so we have to base our plan on being able to carry somebody out of here.”
Officials say under normal conditions, fire managers aim to have medical extraction plans that allow for an injured person to get to a hospital within less than one hour. Whereas the extraction time in a forest like Santa Fe can be delayed to several hours. They say blazes like Black Feather call for a suppression response, tactics and strategies other than direct attack are often proven safer for firefighters.