May 6, 2002
___
New Mexico fire threatens Baptist camp
___CLOUDCROFT, N.M. (ABP) -- As firefighters worked over the weekend to try to gain an advantage over a 15,000-acre forest fire before winds picked up on Monday, a New Mexico Baptist encampment in the area continued to escape major damage.
___ The Silvells Baptist Retreat and Conference Center had lost two bathhouses and eight cabins by Friday night after the Penasco Fire exploded out of control. Also gone were a well house and materials on site for a planned new cabin to be built by a team of church volunteers.
___ All the camp's major buildings had survived, however, though it appeared earlier the whole camp would be lost as fire raced through the Sacramento Mountains in south central New Mexico near the small town of Mayhill.
___ "God is so merciful," said Paul Klopfer, who manages the camp owned by the Baptist Convention of New Mexico. He said he believed most of 128 beds destroyed in the blaze would be replaced before the heavy camping season arrives in summer.
___ The cabins, which had been constructed by volunteers through the years, were rough wood shelters that were about half wood and half tent.
___ Klopfer and his wife, Sally, said it was a miracle that major buildings, including a dining hall, chapel, staff lodgings and a recently renovated family retreat center, were spared.
___ "I know that [prayer's] helping," said Sally Klopfer, asking for continued prayers for the safety of the camp's major structures as fire surrounded the camp on all sides.
___ Earlier, when the outlook was more bleak, Paul Klopfer had commented, "It will take a miracle to save the camp, but I believe [God] will."
___ Baptists across the state watched television interviews with Klopfer, along with images of flames jumping from tree to tree over camp structures, shooting as high as 100 feet in the air.
___ The fire began on Tuesday, April 30. The next morning firefighters moved into the camp and made it their staging area for fighting the blaze.
___ News reports said that approximately 1,000 firefighters were dispatched to the fire, which, investigators believed, was caused by accident. A suspect, 47-year-old William Myers Jr. of Wills Canyon, confessed to accidentally setting the fire, before taking his own life Wednesday night, apparently distraught over the fire.
___ At one point, the fire got close to the camp but turned away.
___ That changed quickly around Tuesday afternoon, when the camp was hastily evacuated as winds picked up the flames, causing them to jump fire lines.
___ The Klopfers had time to only get a few valuables out of their home before fleeing.
___ Moments later a television reporter said that Klopfer had told him that the camp manager thought nothing would be left standing at the camp. Shortly after that, television news stations erroneously reported the camp had been lost.
___ Acreage involved in the blaze spread to 15,400 by Sunday, when it was described as 60-percent under control, and about 20 structures had been destroyed.
___ Klopfer wrote pastors and other New Mexico Baptists e-mails asking them to pray for the safety of the camp and the nearby community of Mayhill, with about 240 residents and 180 homes and businesses very much in danger.
___ Sivells Camp was founded in 1963 when the Baptist state convention purchased 168 acres of land in southern New Mexico because the convention's only camp at the time, Inlow Youth Camp near Albuquerque, was not big enough to accommodate all the camping needs of both the Woman's Missionary Union and the Brotherhood.
___ The new camp was constructed by hundreds of volunteers on weekends under the direction of H.C. Sivells, who served as director of men's ministries in the state from 1954 to 1971.
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