Update from Catron County Manager

I spoke with the Catron County Manager, Bill Aymar, just a few minutes ago.  He and about 50 firefighters are in Luna, NM right now.

Aymar confirmed that there had been an official 12 hour pre-evacuation notice made by Arizona's Incident Management Command, but no evacuation order for Luna has been given by anyone.  While some people are voluntarily evacuating, there is no order to do so at this time since the fire is still miles away (and may not even have crossed into NM yet).  The firefighters present in Luna will be creating a defensive perimeter around the town.  Aymar is feeling positive about Luna's coming through the fire safely, and said there is a decent chance that no evacuation will be necessary for Luna.

"It is very important that people be very sure of their sources of information," Aymar cautioned.  "We just heard there's a news station saying that there are two structural fires at Red Hill - this is not true.  Unless your information is coming from an official source, do not assume it is true."

"There are problems with passing along false information besides it just not being true," Aymar said.  "If we sent fire assets to Red Hill to deal with fires that aren't even occurring, we spread ourselves thin elsewhere.  That alone could cause needless loss of life and property.  And of course, enough false information can lead to panic, and panic can end up with loss of life and property, too."

Meanwhile, in addition to the Type 1 and Type 2 Incident Management teams assigned to Arizona, a Type 1 Incident Management Team will be arriving imminently to handle the NM side of the fire, should it cross the state line.  This team will be headquartered at the Reserve Fairgrounds.