Ruidoso rebuilding stronger a year after fires and flooding
RUIDOSO, N.M. — June 17 marks exactly one year since the South Fork Fire and the Salt Fire erupted around Ruidoso and forced thousands of people to evacuate.
The two separate fires surrounded Ruidoso from the north and the south that evening. Strong winds only made the bad situation worse. In all, two people did in the fires. More than a thousand homes and businesses burned to the ground, including at least 500 homes.
“We were up about a half a billion dollars [$500 million] in total damage,” Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford said.
Then, torrential rain brought life-threatening flash floods to the village.
“It is so destructive that people do not realize that a lot of the homes that weren’t even damaged by the fire were taken out by the flood,” Mayor Crawford said.
A year later, people are sticking around and rebuilding in better spirits. According to Mayor Lynn Crawford, the village has already spent $600 million debris removal and other cleanup efforts. As of now, there are dozens of reconstruction projects underway.
“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of rebuilding modular homes that are being brought in,” the mayor said. “The only vacant buildings we have in town are the ones that are being remodeled, that have been purchased and big upgrades are planned.”
The village is learning from the fires and building back more resilient.
“We’re talking about different roofing material, trying to go more into metal. Making sure that the trees are thinned, the pine needles are raked,” the mayor said. “We’ve always made sure that we have a strong fire department, plenty of firefighters, good equipment, plenty of water supply.”
The village still has questions about how the fires started. They brought in the FBI to investigate claims that the Salt Fire was human-caused.
The mayor said he never received an answer.
“There were several people that were detained and evidence supposedly gathered,” the mayor said. “The attorney general declined to prosecute so I have requested put in a FOIA – Freedom of Information Act – with the federal government to look at that data to find out just, ‘What did they see?'”
The mayor said tax data from this past April shows the village is actually up $600,000 from last April – before the fires.
FROM A YEAR AGO: