All: You may be hearing news reports of a "new" big fire in NM near Cloudcroft. It actually started yesterday afternoon about 5 miles east of APO. High westerly winds and dry conditions have resulted in a ~20,000 acre blaze which has moved directly away from the observatory over the past 24 hours--we are OK for now. Several small communities and ranches may have sustained damage or are threatened. Many hundreds of volunteers and Forest Service firefighters are working on containment, to which I don't how successful they have been. Solid information about the fire has been difficult to get. The winds at APO and NSO Sunspot have been persistent from the west for the past 24 hours, and are subsiding somewhat. It is not felt that either site is in immediate danger, but evacuation preparations are being taken. There is a forecast for the winds to shift tomorrow. Fire crews are working to create a firebreak at the original source of the fire in case the winds shift and the fire tries to flare back in our direction. If the observatories become threatened by a change in the fire situation, only the trained APO and NSO fire fighting personnel will remain and work with the Forest Service and other agencies to protect the facilities. Bruce Gillespie APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 431 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html APO To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu APO To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO