This field trip through the Las Conchas Fire scar was part of the SW AFE Fire Ecology Conference in Santa Fe. We visited Valles Caldera and Bandelier National Monument and made several stops in between. The Las Conchas fire began when a gust of wind blew an aspen over onto a power line on June 26, 2011. The fire was fully contained on August 1, 2011 at 156,593 acres–at the time it was the largest wildfire recorded in NM history.
