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Dark Canyon Fire grows to 450 acres

Nicole Maxwell
Alamogordo Daily News

The hot and dry weather in the region is impacting Dark Canyon Fire which grew to 450 acres as of Aug. 11.

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The fire began Aug. 4 when lightning stuck a remote part of the Smokey Bear Ranger District on the Lincoln National Forest.

The fire is about nine miles northwest of Capitan and has reached the Mud Spring area west of Carrizozo Cone.

“This is a confine-and-contain full-suppression fire however, the low-to-moderate fire activity is resulting in positive fire effects on the landscape,” said Acting District Fire Management Officer Errick Kimbrell.

“This area has not burned in quite some time, since the early 90s. There is about a seven-inch layer of needle litter that has accumulated that is now being removed along with some of the blown down trees.”  

Blown down trees can accumulate into hazardous levels of fuels. Period fire on the landscape steadily removes fuel, reducing risk of catastrophic wildfires in the future.

Smoke will be visible from Capitan, Devil’s Canyon, Highway 380, and Highway 246. It will drift to the northeast towards Roswell, Ramon and Vaughn, a Lincoln National Forest press release said. 

More:Dark Canyon Fire grows to 420 acres

This type of fire is a historical part of the American southwest ecosystem that ordinarily happens every 10 to 35 years.

Updates about the Dark Canyon Fire will be reported daily to InciWeb Incident Information System website and to New Mexico Fire Info website.

Nicole Maxwell can be contacted by email at nmaxwell@alamogordonews.com, by phone at 575-415-6605 or on Twitter at @nicmaxreporter.