Bi-national Firefighting Effort Continues
Incident: Alamo Wildland Fire
Released: 4/20/2008
NEWS RELEASE
ALAMO FIRE
Bi-national Firefighting Effort Continues
NOGALES, AZ (April 20, 2008) 12:00 am - Wildland firefighting officials from the United States are fully integrating their efforts with Mexican leaders, in order to suppress the 3000 acre (1214 hectares) Alamo wildfire just west of Nogales. The fire is burning on both sides of the international boundary with approximately 200 acres (81 hectares) being south of the border. Mexican bomberos (firefighters) from the national commission of forestry, as well as the chief of civil protection for the City of Nogales, Sonora, are working closely with an Arizona incident management team and interpreters. Officials from both countries have established a unified operations effort, which entails a joint planning process.
At this stage the Americans have over 170 firefighters battling the blaze and Mexico has about a dozen bomberos on the fire line. Firefighters are utilizing three helicopters and two air tankers to slow the spread of the fire. The fire is in very remote mountains just east of the Pajarita Wilderness area of the Coronado National Forest. The extreme terrain makes foot access to the fire and air attack efforts to dampen it very difficult. Currently the northern end of the fire is one mile south of Pena Blanca Lake. The fire is predominately burning in light grass, brush and oak, as well as mesquite.
In order to control the spread of the blaze, firefighters have been conducting burnout operations along the Ruby and 39A Roads. An American effort is underway to tie in a fire line along a ridge in Mexico with the bomberos on the southwestern part of the fire. Thirteen engines and five hand crews are now on the fire. One hot shot crew from California is in route with six more hot shot crew orders pending. Predicted southwest wind gusts up to 25 mph are expected in the valleys with ridge tops wind speeds reaching 30 mph.
No structures have been threatened to date, but structure protection units are staged on two nearby ranches to defend them if necessary. No injuries have been reported three days into the incident. The Eastern Arizona Incident Management Team took over the fire at 8pm on Saturday, April 19th. The fire is human caused and is under fire investigation.
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