Las Conchas Fire

The Pajarito Plateau is rich in prehistoric Puebloan archeological sites. A study after the fire confirmed 1,104 of the sites were directly in the burn zone. Damage to sites from high-intensity fire includes spalling of stone structures, coating with soot and wax, and heat-induced cracking of stone and ceramic artifacts.[24]

Destructive flooding occurred in the burned region as the result of heavy monsoon rainstorms on August 21. The flooding was exacerbated by devegetated land and charred soil covered with waxy burn products, making the land in the burn scar hydrophobic.[12][25]

Sixteen thousand acres of Santa Clara Pueblo land burned in the fire, much of it in the pueblo's watershed. Forty-five percent of the watershed was burned, leading to fears of flooding. The pueblo responded by preparing for floods.[26] As much of the burned area is still as of 2022 at risk for dangerous flash floods, the pueblo installed three large steel and concrete debris racks on Santa Clara Creek upstream from the pueblo.[1] Videos exist on Youtube.com showing flash flooding and debris flows in the pueblo in the years after the fire.[27]

In Frijoles Canyon, National Park Service workers piled sandbags and used jersey barriers in a successful effort to protect the historic visitor center at Bandelier National Monument and other structures and cultural assets from flooding along El Rito de los Frijoles. Although the efforts did indeed save structures and assets from damage, widespread damage occurred in the watershed, including to trails, buildings, and archeological sites.[28]

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  Flood damage below Long House, Bandelier National Monument
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  Flood damage at the visitor center, Bandelier National Monument
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  Flood damage along the Alcove House Trail, Bandelier National Monument
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  Flood damage on El Rito de los Frijoles, Bandelier National Monument

A popular tradition in New Mexico was the fall harvest at Dixon's Apple Orchard, a family-owned orchard in Cochiti Canyon near Cochiti, New Mexico, established in 1944 from grafts from a wild apple tree found growing nearby. Earlier in the year, a late frost had damaged some of the approximately 3,000 New Mexico desert apple trees.[29] On the first day of the fire, the flames reached the canyon walls that surround the orchard. The owners home, some of the equipment, and about 300 apple trees were destroyed by the flames. Efforts to subdue the fire on the property is cited with saving thousands of these trees.[30][29] However, on August 22, following the heavy monsoon rains, a massive flood laden with ash, boulders, and woodland debris swept through the canyon nearly two hours after rain clouds appeared over the mountains. The flood waters turned the small Rio Chiquito into a torrent "as wide as a football field" sufficient to cover the canyon from one wall to the other, damaging trees that had survived the fire, and covering the orchard in several feet (over a meter) of sediment.[30] The next day, while cleaning up and working to repair the orchard, a second flood hit the canyon, covering the orchard in a depth of over 12 feet (3.7 metres) of blackened water. Video exits on Youtube.com showing the destructive flooding.[31]

In January 2016, the land the orchard occupied was returned to Cochiti Pueblo in a land swap agreement. The ruins of the ancestral home, Old Cochiti Pueblo, overlooks the canyon immediately above the orchard; the Pueblo holds these lands as sacred. Remnants of the orchard, including several hundred apple trees, still stand in the canyon.[32]

The burn scar lies directly in the watershed of the Rio Grande, the most important watersource in this region of the Southwest. Since the Rio Grande is a large watercourse, and the affected watersheds lie immediately upstream from Cochiti Dam, which manages flood control in the middle Rio Grande Valley, fears of flooding on the river were minimal. However, as ash and debris were swept into the river following the August floods, water quality was of concern, since the waters from Cochiti Reservoir are used from the dam down to Socorro for irrigation and drinking water, including agricultural use and domestic supply in Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city; its capital of Santa Fe, as well as several Pueblos and other communities.[32]