We were home for a week or so after Alaska and were called again to the Southwest. We were expecting to end up on the Las Conchas Fire outside of Los Alamos but were instead sent south to the Little Lewis Fire near Alamogordo. We were only on that fire for 3 days before a huge storm passed over and drenched it, and us. We spent the next 8 or 9 days staging in Mayhill, NM and finished off the roll on the El Paso fire near Timberon, NM. We started off that fire with a 36 hour shift which was pretty tiring, and a couple days later were headed home. We didn’t spend too many days on fire this roll, so I don’t have many photos.





I was the lookout on our first day on the Little Lewis fire, and was posted on top of a little mountain across a valley from where the crew was working. Slowly the clouds began to build, and I got some nice shots of them as they did.






The bottom of a building thunderhead.






Fairly suddenly the sky turned black to the West, and I could see heavy rain coming towards the fire. I was letting the crew know over the radio that they might get wet, but it ended up hitting before we could get out.






A gloomy scene.






The last view of the sun before it was swallowed up my this massive thunderhead that began dropping peanut-sized hail on us, in June!






We did a lot of repairing fences during our staging days, and things occasionally got a little goofy. Here Joby is wearing a cow pelvis as some kind of war helmet.





Some poor elk met its end at this spot after getting its leg caught in the fence.






This is a poor quality photo because of the camera I was using, but it was an amazing thing to see. Fire is running through the grass on the El Paso fire at about midnight when we got there, with a big yellow moon setting behind it.






Miller and Natalie chatting over a burning juniper stump the next morning. We worked through the night getting the edge of the fire secured, and it was beautiful to see the sunrise from the first faint glow.






My saw partner swinging a pulaski at the break of day. I really like this photo, because it catches such a serene moment.






I crouched down behind an ocotillo to get this shot. Sometimes I like deliberate overexposure in photography, and I do think that digital sensors handle it better than film does.






Once again we were chased off the hill by massive thunderstorms.






Halvey found three elk sheds one day, which added quite a bit of weight to his pack on the hike out.






A rainbow in the sky on our last drive out from the El Paso fire, as thunderstorms raged all around.






An Oryx, first introduced to the US from Africa in 1952 I believe. I was pretty surprised to see such a beautiful and strange creature out in the creosote, but there it is. We ended up seeing probably 15 of them in the time we were there.






A last view of New Mexico from my buggy window on our way home. The Southwest is so wonderful, and it was great to see the monsoons again. I don’t think we’ll be back this year, but perhaps i’ll end up living there again...