Jill...If my memory is correct...you asked about the fires at Mesa Verde a while back
Cheers
Treasures Among the Ashes
Indian Ruins Discovered in Fire-Ravaged National Park
By Maria F. Durand
July 23 — A fire burning out of control in Mesa
Verde National Park has unearthed hidden
ancient Indian artifacts, complicating firefighters’
task of putting out the blaze before it spreads to
other areas of the park.
About 350 firefighters battled the flames in a 3,500-acre
area of rugged, steep terrain on the eastern boundary of the
park, about 260 miles southwest of Denver.
“The conditions have not improved,” said Brian Peterson,
spokesman for the National Park Service. “We are hoping for
some moisture, a drop in the temperature, anything.”
The wildfire, which spewed wind-whipped flames and
sent a gray curtain of smoke into the sky, doubled in size
Friday and spread quickly across tinder-dry mesas and
canyons, forcing the evacuation of 1,000 tourists.
“Oh, my! It [has] grown,” said Jane Anderson, who works
for the park and lives nearby.
The fire has not threatened any of the cliff dwellings and
mesa villages built by Pueblo Indians more than 1,000 years
ago.
Ruins Uncovered
Thirteen park archaeologists traveling with firefighters are
protecting and securing the previously undocumented sites
and taking an inventory of the find. The group has not yet
detailed what items were uncovered.
The mounds of rubble, which are believed to be walls,
were exposed when the flames burned away vegetation.
“The archaeologists are very excited,” said Elaine Simo,
spokeswoman for the National Park Service.
The fire, apparently caused by lightning, broke out on the
eastern boundary of the 52,000-acre park on Thursday. It
raced through juniper, pinon and oak brush, burning within a
mile of the single road through the area.
National Park Service officials said the park would
probably remain off limits to tourists through the weekend.
The canyon walls are so steep that firefighters had
difficulty reaching the flames. Officials said the fire was so
intense that it was creating powerful updrafts, in effect,
making its own weather rather than being pushed by winds.
Centuries after the original cliff dwellers left the Mesa
Verde area, Pueblo Indians began filtering into the region to
inhabit the dwellings, and referred to the original cliff
dwellers as the Anasazi, or Ancient Ones.
Other Fires
Wildfires also burned in Southern California — including a
5,000-acre blaze in a remote canyon in Death Valley National
Park — and consumed 70,000 acres in eastern Oregon.
In Southern California, the Death Valley fire started in
desert grass and brush in Happy Canyon, north of the small
desert community of Trona, said Tom Sensintaffar, manager
of a federal interagency communications center. Flames then
spread into higher elevations and into the park.
The area’s steep terrain and limited road access mean
the fire must be fought primarily from the air, he said.
Hundreds of firefighters were on the scene.
No injuries were reported, and the park remained open,
spokeswoman Nancy Wizner said. The cause of the blaze
was unknown.
Smaller fires burned west of Santa Clarita, east of
Temecula, and in Cleveland National Forest in San Diego
County.
In Oregon, firefighters contained a 70,000-acre fire that
burned near Boardman after gusty winds died down. High
temperatures and winds moved the flames quickly through
dry grassland in two counties after the blaze broke out late
Saturday morning.
The blaze had threatened several had threatened several
farm houses and closed a highway in the remote area, but
there were no reports of injuries or property damage,
officials said. The cause was unknown.
Firefighters were battling three other large fires in
northwestern Colorado, at least two of them caused by
lightning.
The largest was burning on 1,500 acres about seven
miles east of Rangely and threatened two trailers and two
cabins. It was 10 percent contained Saturday.
Nearly 56,000 fires have burned 2.8 million acres
nationwide this season, according to the National
Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, the worst acreage total
since 1996.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
