Abstract

Las Conchas Wildfire (NM): Progression, Management, and Context
Track: Wildland Fire Management
Authors: Kristen Honig

Facilitated by extreme drought conditions throughout the southwestern United States, the largest wildfire in New Mexico history was ignited on June 26th, 2011 in the Jemez Mountains. By the end of July, the Las Conchas Fire had consumed 156,593 acres, destroyed 112 structures in surrounding communities, and threatened Los Alamos National Laboratory. This presentation focuses on the timeline of events including fire progression maps, evolution of the fire's management, and interpretation of incident maps. An overlay analysis of historic fire perimeters and burn severity comparison to the Cerro Grande Fire are also included to provide context. Public domain data for the analysis was acquired from the Forest Service FTP and GeoMAC websites. The final time-aware fire progression layer was generated by consolidating records for each day of the incident, subtracting the previous days' perimeter using overlay analysis, and merging the individual days into a single file.