Nick Seibel of the Silver City Daily Press covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week, we learn of the Sacaton Fire, an Independence Day injury for Silver City Fire Chief Milo Lambert and a meeting of the Silver City Democratic Party where the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and more.
Susan Morée:
There's a really large fire going on in your region. Has it been contained?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, fortunately, it's not super close to Silver City. The Sacaton Fire is burning 15 miles east of Glenwood up in the northern part of the Gila National Forest, the Gila Wilderness. It's now 11% contained, which is definitely an improvement. It's almost doubled in size over the weekend. That growth really slowed down. In fact, it's hardly grown at all since that point because, of course, monsoon season's kind of kicked off a little bit in the area. Even though there hasn't been a ton of rain on the fire itself, the rise in humidity and the increased cloud cover really have aided. And so far, one important structure, although not an occupied one, has already been destroyed by the fire. That's the Apache Cabin, which is a historic forest service cabin on Little Dry Trail, which was destroyed by the fire over the weekend.
Susan Morée:
And how many structures are in danger?
Nick Seibel:
Fifty-six is the last report that we had from the Forest Service. Although, again, things have really calmed down. Again, the fire is now at 11% containment as of the last report that we had.
Susan Morée:
Okay. And something really terrible happened to the Silver City Fire Chief. Tell us about that.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it was a good 4th of July in Silver City, until really the very end. The town of Silver City, of course, sponsors a fireworks display that takes place from behind the Grant County Administration Building. And for the last, gosh, a number of years, the Silver City Fire Department has operated that fireworks display. And Fire Chief Milo Lambert, after the display was over, was helping to clean up. And in one of the launch tubes, apparently, there was a shell that had not gone off and basically exploded on him, inflicted some burns on him. Still waiting for new updates, but our reporter did speak to him on Monday morning. He answered his own cell phone from the hospital and sounded good, said that he was doing well. A lot of folks pulling for Chief Lambert here. Milo, in addition to being a fire chief is sort of a man about town. And for the folks at the newspaper, he's known as the man of the golden quote. You always look forward to talking to Milo because he has a way with words when it comes to important incidents.
Susan Morée:
All right, but he had to be airlifted, correct?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it's like kind of, I mean, when you're dealing with trauma, that's not something that GilaRegional Medical Center here in Silver City deals with a whole lot that he's going to be taken by helicopter down to El Paso. That's kind of what happens in those situations. Certainly, hoping for the best there for Chief Lambert.
Susan Morée:
All right. Well, we wish him a speedy recovery. And there was a meeting to talk about the upcoming decision about Lieutenant Governor in Silver City. Talk about that.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, of course, it's really statewide news. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who handily won the Democratic primary election last month for lieutenant governor, ended up late last month dropping out of the race because of health reasons. And that kind of kicked off a frenzy. There were five or six folks who had thrown their hats into the ring there on the Democratic side to run alongside Deb Haaland for Lieutenant Governor. One of the first people to kind of put their name out there was Stephanie Garcia Richard, who's the incumbent state land commissioner. Stephanie, of course, has a history here in Silver City, having grown up in Grant County, having attended and graduated from Silver High School. And so, it's an interesting wrinkle for folks in Grant County because, of course, we've just had eight years of having Howie Morales up on the 4th floor of the Roundhouse. So it'll be interesting to see. The [Democratic] candidate for governor, Deb Haaland interviewed all of the candidates late last month and ended up giving her endorsement to Garcia Richard. But Senator [Harold Pope, of] Albuquerque, who also ran in the primary, is still staying in the race, and both of them were in town last night for the Grant County Democratic Party's regular monthly meeting, basically stumping. It wasn't a decision that the county party necessarily gets to make, but there are a number of Democrats in Grant County who serve on the State Central Committee that we'll be meeting at the end of this month to make that decision officially.
Susan Morée:
All right, well, it'll be interesting to see the outcome of that. And where can readers find these stories, Nick?
Nick Seibel:
You can find all this and more online at scdailypress.com.
Susan Morée:
All right, thanks so much.
Nick Seibel:
Thank you.