Gila National Forest: Update on Good Turkey Fire for June 11, 2020 – Wilderness Ranger District

Good Turkey Fire

Location: between Blood Canyon and Brushy Mountain, Wilderness Ranger District, Gila National Forest

Start Date:  June 6, 2020               Size:  ~ 5,900 acres                          Cause: Lightning

Vegetation:  Pinyon-Juniper

Resources:  eight smokejumpers, three 20-person Interagency Hotshot Crew, and a seven-person Wilderness District crew.

Objectives and Strategy:

The main objective for managing this fire is to keep the fire south of Little Creek Drainage, which includes preventing the fire from spotting over the Little Creek drainage. The strategy is to use the trail system and natural barriers to limit spread which is part of the confine/containment.  The agency administrator and incident manager are working on a closure order that will include Trail #160 which comes out of the Gila Center, and Trail #161 at Little Creek.

Values on these fires include public and wildland fire safety, the NM Hwy 15 corridor, private inholdings and associated infrastructure, the cultural and tourism aspect of the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, the natural values of wilderness, wildlife habitat including the Gila trout, and to minimize the footprint and to have low intensity fire on the landscape.

Smoke from fire rises up and away during the daytime, but in the evenings, smoke can pool back down in canyons, drainages, and basins.  Overnight smoke from the Tadpole Fire has settled in the Mimbres Valley. For information on air quality and protecting your health, and to find guidance on distances and visibility, please visit https://nmtracking.org/fire. Fire information can be found at nmfireinfo.com.  Inciweb information:  https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6739/ and https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6740/.

For information on the Gila National Forest, check out our website at https://www.fs.usda.gov/gila or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.