Officials speak on wildfire that damaged Fort Stanton Historic Site
RUIDOSO, N.M. (KRQE) – A Wildfire burning near Ruidoso has now left its mark on a major piece of New Mexico history, destroying and damaging buildings at one of the oldest military forts in the country. 'The good news is that the majority of the site is intact,' said Oliver Horn, New Mexico Historic Sites, Lincoln/Fort Stanton Regional Manager.
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But after burning structures built during World War II, the Camp Fire has now left destruction at one of New Mexico's most historic military sites. 'And so, the fire essentially swept through the internment camp, and so, we lost two wood structures from the CCC, what we think are from the original CCC camp,' said Horn.
Sunday afternoon, the blaze ripped through two wooden buildings on the northwest part of the property outside of Capitan. Those include an old residence and an old bowling alley, both built in the 1940s near areas where German sailors were held in internment camps. 'The firefighters, the incident commanders, incident response team, they were able to channel the fire away from the main site and on the northern side of the Rio Benito river,' said Horn.
With buildings dating back to 1855, Fort Stanton is among the largest, oldest, and most intact military forts in the country and one of the best preserved in New Mexico. The 240-acre property has nearly 90 buildings on it, most of which the wildfire didn't touch.
'However, the other remaining features over there survived, and so, some of them, you know, the key ones are, there's a guardhouse. So, all of these are a combination of concrete and adobe structures. So, they're fire resistant, and so the guardhouse survived,' said Horn.
The state Department of Cultural Affairs documented and photographed all the buildings on the site in the last few years, which is something they'll use for visitors now as a reminder of what's been lost. 'We lost some historic structures that we cannot replace,' said Horn.
Fort Stanton remains closed until further notice because crews also need to replace a damaged water pumping system. They're also working on a continued project to remove all invasive species in the area while looking to replace some of the building roofs on the site with more fire-resistant materials.
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