Just in time for fire season, someone burglarized a storage building used by Santa Fe National Forest "Hot Shot" firefighters and stole numerous chains saws and other equipment the crews use to take on wildfires.
According to a State Police report filed in court, the thefts were discovered May 21 at the Forest Service facility south of town near the N.M 14/N.M. 599 interchange.
An officer's affidavit used to obtain a search warrant lists 13 chain saws worth more than $1,000 each and numerous other pieces of equipment as missing. Whoever took the items also splattered paint around the building.
A fence had been cut to provide entry to the facility grounds and next to the cut it appeared as if someone had covered tire tracks with fresh dirt, the officer's statement says.
The affidavit quotes a Forest Service official as saying it didn't appear that the storage building's door had been broken into and that it was likely that "someone had a key" to get in.
Forest Service spokesman Bruce Hill said the thefts haven't hampered firefighting activities.
"It's not an issue," Hill said. "It's not impacting us at all."
The Hot Shot crews that use the building were in Arizona fighting a wildfire when the theft took place.
Judging from the search warrant affidavit, the investigation is focusing on a former employee who was "recently let go."
When a State Police officer when to a house on Mann Street on Monday looking for him, people there allowed the officer to take away a drill engraved with the letters "SFHS," for Santa Fe Hot Shots, that the residents said belonged to the former Forest Service employee.
When the officer went back on Tuesday, they took the former employee, Graham Fickes, 33, into custody on a probation and parole arrest order. A search was made and a couple of tools and containers were seized.
Copyright 2012 Albuquerque Journal
