Village of Corrales busy clearing brush from bosque
Posted at: 03/06/2013 6:33 PM
| Updated at: 03/06/2013 6:34 PM
By: Eddie Garcia, KOB Eyewitness News 4
KOB Eyewitness News 4 checked in with the Village of Corrales which had a monster bosque fire last June.
Since then, they've been hard at work knocking down what caused the fire - thick brush.
Jay Underwood loves the bosque as it is and wishes it could stay that way.
"I think the less you mess with it the better," said Underwood.
But leaving it thick and unkempt can lead to monster wildfires like the Romero fire which broke out last June.
Corralles Fire Chief Anthony Martinez was there.
"Behavior on that fire just spread very rapidly so this year we're trying to prepare," said Martinez.
Since the fire they've been clearing non-native plants, so crews can fight a wildfire at ground level instead of up in the treetops.
"You know it's brittle dry and we've had very poor moisture and rainfall this past winter and snowmelt so we're on alert," said Mayor Phil Gasteyer.
New Mexico State Forestry is helping people get comfortable with clearing some of the bosque.
"A lot of people are nervous about when we say we're cutting trees which that probably would make anyone nervous but once I think we get going through the project, they tend to relax a little bit," said District Forester, Todd Haines.
The project makes sense to Underwood.
"Fire is a big problem here - so I'd much rather see this than see it burn," said Underwood.
The project's objective isn't to clear the entire Corrales bosque but to create sections of clear area to keep fire from burning north or south along the bosque.
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