A massive wildfire that almost reached Los Alamos, New Mexico, last year began as a result of a U.S. Forest Service prescribed burn, the agency admitted Monday. The Cerro Pelado Fire raced across 60 square miles and came within a few miles of the national security lab in Los Alamos before it was contained. Investigators found that the wildfire started with a burn of piles of forest debris commissioned by the Forest Service that became a holdover fire which smoldered under snow without anyone realizing for several months. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she was “outraged over the U.S. Forest Service’s negligence that caused this destruction.”
