Ruidoso, NM – The Little Bear Fire, which has already consumed 36,000 acres of mixed conifer and Ponderosa Pine in the Lincoln National Forest near Ruidoso, has also damaged three lifts at Ski Apache.

“Ski Apache has had damage on Chair 4 Capitan,” a fixed-grip triple chair at the base of the mountain, the resort’s Operations Manager, Justin Rowland, posted on Facebook yesterday. Ski Apache’s trail crews used the resort’s snowmaking guns to try to battle back the approaching flames. “We will be assessing (the) gondola, and chair 2. We also lost several small structures on the top of Capitan. Otherwise we are still standing and swinging.”

Southern New Mexico is tinder dry this summer thanks to lower than normal snowfall this past winter and light spring precipitation. Ski Apache sits at the fire’s southwest perimeter. Smoke and flames are visible from Ruidoso’s streets in the mountains above the town.

Crews once thought they had a handle on the Little Bear fire, but high winds in recent days fanned the flames back to life. Decreased winds today, however, are allowing firefighters to make better progress on the wildfire. At press time the blaze, which was sparked by a lightning strike just over a week ago, is only 30 percent contained after destroying 35 structures, including those at Ski Apache. Nearly 1,000 firefighters are battling the wildfire, both on the ground and in the air.

Crews are today considering bringing in a massive DC-10 air tanker based in Phoenix to supplement the equipment currently being used to fight the fire. Yesterday they constructed a direct fire line around the ski area, which is owned and operated by the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

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(YouTube video: myruidoso)