Bike Month Closes Quoting Baldwin

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but fire next time" --from Old Negro spiritual, used as the title of James Baldwin's book "The Fire Next Time"

Tres Lagunas fire photographed at 1400 today from North Mesa in Los Alamos.

With sustained winds of 25-30 mph and gusts over 40, its not the time for the tinder dry forests of New Mexico to catch fire, which surely they are doing. It is also a crappy time to be on a bicycle. I shot this picture of the Tres Lagunas fire, currently burning out of control near Pecos, from the Middle School up above our house and decided to go back home again and sulk with our Aussie Shephard, just recovering from surgery.

Say what you will about the climate change arguments, but Ma Nature has always been a little bit tough to handle in the Southwest. With much of the state in the worst drought in its recorded history, its sure not getting any easier. Patrick O'Grady, who once scribed for the New Mexican, once made a joke about turning on the water tap and having sand pour out. It might actually happen.

Need another category soon:"Mother of All Droughts"
Source: Albuquerque Journal

Note added at 1634. There is now a small fire (small being a very temporary definition in these parts) burning north of Jemez Springs near La Cueva, the Thompson Ridge Fire. Both the Jemez Springs and Tres Lagunas fires were started by damaged power lines. You know, like the one that started the Las Conchas fire? Don't you think we would have learned to clear sufficiently around power lines by now?

Jemez Springs fire just starting up