"You gotta drive to Sipapu to make a call," Cody added. The pair told me that since the fires damaged the valley's cell tower a few days ago, the community at the end of the long road has been cut off. #HermitsPeakFire #calfcanyonfire /7yLIoyuWFY- EricMack.eth May 4, 2022 Tuesday afternoon in Chacon, New Mexico shortly before mandatory evacuation was ordered for the village. They greeted me dressed in matching yellow flame-resistant shirts just as they were about to climb into one of the department's cherry-red fire engines and drive south to help protect properties near the front line of the fires. He and his father, Alfred, are members of the volunteer fire crew.
"This is day two with no phones, no internet, no nothing," Cody Vasquez told me in front of the Chacon Fire Department on Tuesday afternoon. Looking out on lower Chacon with the smoke plume from the Calf Canyon-Hermit's Peak Fire complex in the background.įor residents who haven't yet fled the advancing inferno, understanding just how close the danger is at any moment became more difficult this week. Anyone making the long drive down a mountain pass to reach that point would be forced to either turn around or take a left turn on the seven-mile road that leads through the canyon to Chacon. New Mexico State Police were enforcing a roadblock at the north entrance to the Mora Valley on the morning of May 3. This is day two with no phones, no internet, no nothing. (As of Monday morning, the total area burned had grown to over 189,000 acres.) The burned area stretches from the edge of the Mora Valley all the way south to the larger city of Las Vegas, New Mexico, where thousands of homes are also threatened by wind-driven flames. When I visited the valley on Tuesday, May 3, the Calf Canyon and Hermit's Peak fire complex had already burned over 145,000 acres and hundreds of structures. What's worse: The historic community literally has no way to call for help as it stands on the brink of annihilation.
Today, though, that view is more like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun in the form of relentless winds pushing both smoke and flames from the largest wildfire in the US up the canyon. For nearly two centuries, a few dozen families have persisted in the tiny village of Chacon, New Mexico, eking out a humble living in a narrow valley known for both harsh winters and frequent drought.īut through generations of struggle, perched at 8,500 feet in elevation, they have also maintained watch over one of the most enviable views in the southern Rocky Mountains - looking south through a short canyon toward the striking Sangre de Cristo mountains that backstop the verdant, larger Mora Valley that's home to about 2,000 people.