From January 15, 2023 post.
INCIDENT UPDATE-
Crews from multiple agencies worked through the night in an attempt to locate the source of the odor in the Rio Communities area. Unfortunately, they were unable to locate an identifiable source.
We know this is frustrating, and we share in the frustration. What we can say is that our fire crews from VCFD, Rio Communities Fire, Belen Fire and New Mexico Gas Co worked throughout the night. We had information from people spanning close to 30 square miles. As you can imagine, it is hard to cover that area and hard to pinpoint a problem.
New Mexico State Environmental Department has been notified and is aware as well. In the next days and weeks we will continue to work with these agencies.
Yesterday the County had a fairly significant inversion layer in the evening, which plays a part in allowing things to release higher in to the atmosphere. That is most likely the reason for the strength of the odor.
If you are feeling sick, and feel it is a medical emergency (hospital worthy), then we suggest you call for help. We will be re-evaluating a shelter site if people need to leave their homes due to the smell.
It appears the inversion layer will open up today which will hopefully allow anything residual to escape.
As stated before, we have no specific or verifiable source for the odor.
There were no ordered evacuations during the event.
If we receive any new information, we will post it.
Original source can be found here.
