Grass fire burns about 1,900 acres

Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Smoke from the grass fire Thursday along Roosevelt County Road A and State Line Road.

Staff report

About 1,900 acres of grassland near the New Mexico-Texas border was taken out by a Thursday fire that required about a dozen entities and eight hours to control.

Lt. Scott Watson of the Portales Fire Department, commander of the effort, said the blaze was called in about 10:15 a.m. and knocked out around 6:30 p.m.

No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported in the fire. Its cause remains under investigation, Watson said, though there were initial reports of a controlled burn going outside its boundary.

The fire originated on State Line Road, about three miles south of N.M. 202 connecting U.S. 70 to Muleshoe.

The Portales department was assisted by every Roosevelt County fire department along with Clovis, Texico, Farwell, Lazbuddie and Muleshoe. There was also aerial support from Alamogordo, which sent a plane to drop flame retardant. Watson said aerial support normally would come from Roswell, but that unit was dispatched to a larger fire in Oklahoma.

The Roosevelt County Road Department also aided with graders that kept the fire from spreading.

“It was extremely sandy with lots of hills,” Watson said. “It was tough for trucks to maneuver in the sand. There were a lot of small trucks attacking.”