Embers of Fate: Two fires, two stories, one season

Charred woodpiles remain in a barren lot where a small wildfire devastated families in a colonia devastated families in a colonia south of Alamo known locally as Little Mexico.

Miles north along U.S. Highway 281, amid blackened mesquite trees, new grass hides an area where this year's largest fire cut a black swath across an area nearly the size of McAllen.

They were two blazes in an unusually cruel and long fire season - one small, one large. Months later, the wounds from the smaller fire continue to scar residents in Little Mexico, while in northern Hidalgo County, residents are recovering.

NO RELIEF

Humberto Maldonado climbed across a rusted scattering of scrap to show the aged tools he now uses to fashion metal fences and doors for the business he runs from the yard of his family's two-story home in Little Mexico.

A 15-acre fire ignited on Valentine's Day in a lot on the other side of Rancho Blanco Road from their home and spread across his fenced yard, destroying the 37-year-old's tool collection.

There was no insurance money to collect for the $2,000 worth of tools he lost or the now-burned-to-the frame 1999 Ford Bronco that Maldonado was fixing for a friend. Now he hopes a man authorities said irresponsibly stored wooden pallets in the field that fed the fire will compensate him.

"They say they cannot do nothing," Maldonado said generally of the county and the owner of the field. "I don't know why they don't want to help us."

REMODELLING

Gilbert Yanez turned the water off outside his home as hired hands worked on the plumbing. The 61-year-old is remodeling the main home on his roughly 100-acre ranch near San Isidro with the insurance money he collected on a storage shed that was reduced to rubble.

Yanez slept poorly on March 18, the night intense flames drove his family off the ranch. He nearly lost his wife to those flames when she accidentally drove into them as she tried to flee.

He thanked God the next day when he discovered the 77-square-mile blaze stopped just a few feet from his home, where the grass meets his gravel driveway.

More than three months later, on a rain-soaked day in July, Yanez reflected on his fortune and said he's wary about tempting fate again by burning any type of waste.

"We keep getting a little bit of rain and it starts drying out again," Yanez said. "I'm cautious about burning."

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

Typically, wildfires flare up in the Rio Grande Valley during the dry months from winter to spring. But this year, a La Niña weather pattern created unusually dry conditions and brought low relative humidity after a rain-soaked summer that had spurred rampant brush growth.

Once that growth dried, it became perfect fuel, feeding blazes that burned more than 131 square miles across the area, according to statistics provided by Hidalgo County. Emergency responders worked long days to quell flames which sometimes sparked on remote ranchland one after another.

Few buildings were damaged, and aside from smoke inhalation there were no injuries. One bobcat, however, was seen with singed fur at a fire early in the season.

And then there's the smell, which lingers long after the fire has gone.

"How do you get rid of this damn smell?" Tony Peña, Hidalgo County's emergency management coordinator, said he asked firefighters with more experience early on in the fire season.

"Sir, the next best thing is to get used to it," Peña said they replied after he told them deodorizer didn't work.

But while most fires burned remote ranchland, the fires in Little Mexico and the massive blaze that nearly burned Yanez's home are exceptional. Hundreds of people were evacuated and hundreds of homes were threatened.

ACCIDENTAL FIRES

A fallen power line near the town of Encino, in Brooks County, sparked a fire that 30 mph winds drove more than 20 miles on March 18. The 41-square-mile fire spread south, then east through Hidalgo County, scorching pastures and destroying at least four structures, including a $1 million home.

Nearly 500 people were evacuated after Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas declared a state of emergency. Most returned the next day to find their homes unscathed. Officials battled the blaze for five days.

At the Little Mexico fire a month earlier, chaos reigned. While well organized authorities contained the blaze to an area near the intersection of Rancho Blanco and Tower Roads, some residents ignored an evacuation order.

TRASH - PICK IT UP

The accidental fire in Little Mexico that forced hundreds of people into the streets, burned at least two cars and two dogs and kissed several homes ignited in a pallet-strewn field owned by Miguel Santiago of Pallet City LLC. Days before the fire, authorities warned Santiago to clean up the field.

But at the same time, the Hidalgo County Fire Marshall's Office warned several other Little Mexico residents - including some who live near the field - that they, too, had to remove trash and other scattered potential fire hazards from their yards.

Santiago and most of the others ignored the warning.

"(Santiago) didn't spark the fire. It was an accidental fire," said Juan Martinez, deputy fire marshal. "They were kind of negligent in the way they had all those pallets and trash put there."

The actual culprit of the fire, Martinez said, was a fallen power line.

Calls seeking comment from Santiago were referred to Van Hutchins, an Edinburg-based lawyer. Hutchins said his client, too, had suffered losses and that Santiago told him he had cleaned up at least some of the mess.

"They had been advised to clean up some of the stuff over there," Hutchins said. "He told me it had been done."

As the gradual recovery from the fires continues, the victims and even the emergency responders find solace in the homes and lives that were saved.

Little Mexico resident Gloria Moreno, the 53-year-old matriarch of a family of seven, was preparing food in her kitchen when she noticed the flames moving toward her tiny home. She lost two dogs to the blaze and had to rebuild some of the walls of her wooden home in the aftermath.

Soot still tarnished a nearby fence last week as she stood with her 4-year-old granddaughter, Yvette, and recounted the fear she felt when everything was "negro."

"I was really scared because everything was black," she said in Spanish.
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Monitor photojournalist Kirsten Luce contributed to this story.
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Sean Gaffney covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.