A massive wildfire, dubbed the “Trigo Fire”, has spread into the Manzano mountains southeast of Albuquerque, and fire crews are still struggling to gain control over it. It ignited on the western slopes of the mountains on Tuesday the 15th, and is estimated to have burned upwards of 3,400 acres as of today (Monday afternoon). The image above was shot on Sunday afternoon from the Albuquerque National Weather Service (NWS) office while winds were gusting up to 35mph and the relative humidity had bottomed out around 4 percent. Notice the vertical extent of the large plume of smoke extending high off of the peaks, showing just how unstable conditions were on Sunday. Needless to say, the ABQ NWS office has issued Red Flag Warnings for much of the past several days given the strong winds and low humidities. Our Incident Meteorologist (IMET) was also dispatched to the fire last Wednesday to offer 24 hour weather support to fire management officials working at the fire. The next three images below were also taken Sunday afternoon.
The photo below was taken today, Monday the 21st. It shows isolated, smaller portions burning on the western slopes, while the main portion of the fire has already overtaken to the eastern side of the mountain chain. Winds were much lighter today, and the smoke plume was noticeably smaller…hopefully indicating some containment.
