Raging Fire Threatens Our Home

In the summer of 1967, there was forest fire that started in the Gavilan Canyon outside of Ruidoso and headed straight for our home in Alto, New Mexico.  I’m not sure how it got started, but my brothers and I first became aware of it when we saw all of the smoke and then flames while we were on the bus heading home from school one day in early May. 

We realized that the fire was traveling pretty much in the same direction that we were, and we could even see the flames cresting the hills over to the right of the highway that we were traveling on.  As usual, we rode the bus to the end of the line which was Mr. Creel’s property, our bus driver’s home, and located just down the mesa from our family’s ranch. 

 

Dad or Mom would usually pick us up at Mr Creel’s house.  But that day, no one was there to pick us up and smoke filled the air, so we just started walking and running down the mesa towards home.  Very quickly either Mom or Dad met us and picked us up, but we got home only to run into the house and quickly help load a few things into our family station wagon.  I remember that we were told to throw a few things to wear in a big suitcase in the living room, and among other things, Mom & Dad loaded some paintings and the old Hale family bible in the back of the car.

We then piled into the car and Mom drove us into the middle of an open field where we parked and were in less danger from the fire that was heading straight for our home.  Mom, me and my three younger siblings sat out there in the field for hours and watched the fire bursting through the tree tops while my Dad and older brother were on the roof with sprinklers and water hoses to try and save our home. 

A bulldozer was tearing a fire break in the woods just below the house, and we watched as forest service planes also dropped their pink slurry to try and turn the fire away from the house.  Eventually they were successful, and the fire stopped at the fire break that was created just below the house.  That fire break, and the slurry, turned the fire away but it still burned a lot of our forested acreage before the fire was finally put out the next day.  

Later that night while the fire fighters continued trying to control the fire, Mom took us to a hotel to get some sleep.  It was several days before it was safe to return home because all of the hot spots also needed to be put out.

The tree grinder.  The summer after the fire, Mom & Dad hired a crew that arrived with a large bull dozer and a tree mulcher machine.  It was pretty exciting and we all watched as the crew and equipment drove back onto our burned acreage and pushed down any remaining trees that had died from the fire.  Then all of the burnt tree trunks, logs and dead brush were cut and fed into a huge mulching machine, ground up and then spit out the back in small pieces.  It took several days to complete the work on the burned portion of the ranch. 

As part of the tree cutting, grinding and mulching work, the burned ranch acreage was spread with seed for permanent grass to prevent erosion and begin the process of restoration. 

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Key Individuals:

     Robert Gordon Scribner  (1923 – 2006)

     Ann Hart Hughes Scribner  (1921 – 2006)

                                   

Notes: 

1967 was a time when girls were required to wear dresses to school.  However, I hadn’t thrown any dresses into the bag that we had quickly packed the afternoon of the fire.  So I had to get special permission to wear pants to school for a couple of days until we left the hotel and could return home.

- Jane Scribner McCrary