Wildfire Wednesday #173: Beyond Acres Treated - All Hands All Lands Collaboration This Fall Burn Season

Happy Holidays Fireshed community,

As temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, many land managers across New Mexico have shifted from summer forest treatments to winter management activities, such as burning slash piles. But before winter settled in, land management agencies and partners across the state achieved several major milestones, with this fall experiencing a great amount of collaborative, landscape-scale prescribed fire work.

After prescribed fire operations conclude, agencies typically release updates on acres treated, smoke impacts, and long-term monitoring plans. What’s often missing from these summaries, however, is the larger story: why each burn mattered, how it contributes to landscape resilience, and what it means for the people putting fire on the ground. Each operation represents meaningful progress, not only in reducing the risk of a future consequential fire and restoring ecosystems adapted to fire, but also in developing the future fire workforce and strengthening cross-jurisdictional partnerships.

Highlighted below are several of the autumn prescribed burns supported or led by the All Hands All Lands (AHAL) Burn Network, a critical resource that helps land managers reintroduce fire at the right place and time and increase the pace and geographic scale at which it is happening.

This Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • All Hands All Lands Fall 2025 Prescribed Fires Successes

    • Black Lake Prescribed Broadcast Burn (deep dive on the burn and its impact)

    • Borrego Mesa Prescribed Jackpot Burn (Truchas/Santa Fe NF, NM)

    • Ojo Sarco Prescribed Broadcast Burn (Ojo Sarco/Carson NF, NM)

    • Holiday Mesa Prescribed Broadcast Burn (Jemez Springs/Santa Fe NF, NM)

    • Espinosa Prescribed Broadcast Burn (Mountainair, NM)

  • Additional Resources

    • The Paseo Project - Art X Fire in northern NM

    • Conservation Seedling Program - taking orders now

    • New! Prescribed Burn Planner Webinar

    • National Wildfire Mitigation Awards

Be merry and be well,
Megan

All Hands All Lands Fall 2025 Prescribed Fire Successes

Black Lake Prescribed Broadcast Burn

In a nutshell: the 2025 burn, the sixth in this area, was part of a much larger landscape-scale restoration effort—one that requires long-term commitment.

During the third week of October, roughly 50 people from agencies, organizations, and local departments across New Mexico gathered in Black Lake (a small community just east of Angel Fire) to complete a 370-acre collaborative prescribed broadcast burn. Organized by the Forest Stewards Guild and bossed (overseen) by The Nature Conservancy, the burn took place on State Trust Land managed by the New Mexico State Land Office. Participants represented a wide range of partners, including the Forest Stewards Guild and its youth crews, Angel Fire Fire Department, Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico Highlands University, the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute (NMFWRI), The Nature Conservancy, Philmont Scout Ranch, the New Mexico Forestry Division, and Moreno Valley Fire Department.

The impact of this burn comes from both the collaborative execution and the strong training and learning environment it created. As participants gathered for morning briefing early on day one of the burn, the circle was filled predominantly by FFT2s—firefighter type 2 personnel who hold basic fire qualifications—with several experiencing prescribed fire for the first time. Many individuals, especially from local fire departments and non-profit organizations, were placed in trainee roles, working to advance their fire qualifications and gain experience that can be put to use in future assignments. Many of the FFT2 roles (holding the containment lines, putting strips of fire on the ground to carry the flames in a controlled manner, mopping up after the burn was completed to ensure its containment) were filled by members of the Forest Stewards Youth Corps crews and students from New Mexico Highlands University. Through this training and hands-on experience, collaborative burns can strengthen local capacity and provide meaningful workforce development opportunities for young adults looking to explore careers in forestry, wildland fire, and natural resource management.

Burn organizers additionally hosted a public tour of the burn, bringing more than a dozen community members onto the landscape to observe operations firsthand, learn about safety measures that reduce the risk of escapes, and watch active fire on the ground. Public tours play a critical role in building familiarity and comfort with prescribed fire, especially in a landscape which has been impacted by large severe wildfires in the recent past. This is exemplified with NMFWRI, where staff members took the initiative to become fire-qualified active burners after attending a public tour during the 2024 Black Lake prescribed burn. As one 2025 FFT1 noted, the tours help grow the next generation of practitioners as much as they help educate the public.

Reflecting on the field tour, one of the facilitators shared:

“The field tour was time for attendees to interact with low intensity fire up-close, to watch it move in the grass based on fuels, winds, and topography, and to feel the heat of different flame lengths. The questions and dialogue that resulted showed that all attendees brought their curiosity and an open mind to the day. Questions ranged from firing techniques, how does the operation that we were observing relate to the burn plan, to more broad questions about high elevation ponderosa pine ecology.”
— Deputy Director, Forest Stewards Guild

The 2025 burn is part of a much larger landscape-scale restoration effort—one that requires long-term commitment. A representative of the New Mexico State Land Office emphasized that this work is a sustained endeavor in forest and fire restoration. This commitment is evident in the years of effort that partners have invested in returning fire to this landscape, with treatments beginning back in 2013. The 2025 burn was the sixth in this area and the second entry burn for these units, which first burned in 2013 and 2016.

This year’s work highlights the culmination of years of relationship- and trust-building among the Forest Stewards Guild, the New Mexico State Land Office, The Nature Conservancy, fire organizations across northern New Mexico, universities, and the broader Black Lake community, who continue to support this form of land stewardship.

In the closing briefing, the Black Lake 2025 burn boss—who brings several decades of wildland and prescribed fire experience—offered words of appreciation that captured the spirit of the entire effort:

“I work with a lot of groups that want to be like this and so I think what you have here and what you have been developing for over a decade is really a premiere product... If you don’t already know this, you are a part of something really special up here.”
— Black Lake Rx Burn Boss - Jeremy Bailey, TNC

These words reflect what many felt throughout the operation. The Black Lake prescribed burn represents not only technical success, but the strength of long-term partnerships, shared learning, and a community that believes in the power of beneficial fire.

 

Borrego Mesa Prescribed Jackpot Burn

This 399-acre broadcast burn on the Santa Fe National Forest was the first burn on the Española Ranger District since post-Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon, marking one step in rebuilding public trust and safely re-initiating prescribed fire operations. On the landscape, this burn helped reduce heavy jackpots of dead and down fuels that had accumulated during the past few years of limited fire use. The project was also significant for its interagency coordination, led by Forest Service but also involving the City of Santa Fe Fire Department, the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, and the Forest Stewards Youth Corps.

 

Ojo Sarco Prescribed Broadcast Burn

This 391-acre WUI (wildland–urban interface) broadcast burn on the Carson National Forest was located along Highway 76 near the community of Ojo Sarco and directly adjacent to private land. This burn not only achieved the objective of reducing hazardous fuels, but did so in an area where homes, transportation corridors, and forested lands meet, an example area where wildfire poses a high risk for destructive impact on a community. Successfully treating this area reduced fuels that pose a risk to Ojo Sarco, demonstrated careful coordination with landowners, and showcased how prescribed fire can be safely applied even in complex boundary conditions where private land boundaries are just feet away from active ignitions.

 

Holiday Mesa Prescribed Broadcast Burn

Members of the Forest Stewards Youth Corps - Jemez Pueblo Youth Crew were involved in this 878-acre burn led by the USDA Forest Service. Through it, they were able to return fire to the landscape on ancestral territory near the Pueblo. It supported Jemez’s ongoing work to restore traditional fire practices, empowered tribal youth through hands-on experience in land stewardship, and demonstrated the ability of federal partners to engage in land management beyond the limited scope of federal employees.

Forest Stewards Youth Corps Program Coordinator and member of Jemez Forest Stewards Youth Crew holding on the fireline

Member of Jemez Forest Stewards Youth Crew bucking a flaming log

Strips of fire being applied by igniters

Espinosa Prescribed Broadcast Burn

The 1,343-acre burn, the largest ever conducted on the Mountainair Ranger District, occurred within the Espinosa–Barranco Wildlife Improvement Project area. The scale made it an important milestone for the district’s capacity to implement large landscape-level prescribed fire. The project relied heavily on aerial ignition, allowing crews to treat over 1,000 acres in just a single day, a significant win in increasing the scale and pace to landscape treatment. In a landscape which is still feeling the impacts of severe wildfires such as the 2016 Dog head Fire, this collaborative burn represented a shift toward improving habitat conditions for wildlife, enhancing ecosystem resilience, and advancing the district’s long-term landscape restoration goals through the use of good fire.

Smoke drifting from the burn area north across the Manzano Mountains after ignitions were completed.

Additional Resources

The Paseo Project - Taos, New Mexico

The Paseo Project invites artists working in all media (2D, 3D, installation, writing, sound, projection, performance, interdisciplinary forms) to apply for participation in Disturbance, a new interdisciplinary program that pairs artists with scientists to explore wildfire as both a destabilizing force and a regenerative element in ecological and social systems. This project will culminate in an exhibition and series of events in Taos, New Mexico, September–December 2026.

Through a required four-day Northern New Mexico based “fire ecology boot camp,” selected artists will be immersed in collaborative dialogue with fire practitioners and ecologists, and site visits to burn scars and post-fire landscapes. Artists will then return to their home studios to develop new work that reflects on the ecological, cultural, and emotional dimensions of wildfire. These works will then be shared in an exhibition, outdoor installations, and public programs in Taos, NM, designed to engage the broader community in dialogue about living with fire in a climate-altered future.

Applications will be accepted through February 1, 2026.

Apply Now
 

New Mexico Forestry Division offers low-cost seedlings in over 60 varieties for landowners to use in reforestation, erosion control, windbreaks, streambank restoration, and wildlife habitat improvement. Spring season orders for seedlings are now open. Ordering is first come first serve, so order early for the best selection. 

Learn more about tree types and uses and order seedlings at Conservation Seedling Program - Forestry.

To participate in the program you must own at least one acre of land in New Mexico and the seedlings purchased through the program must be used for conservation purposes.

 

Webinar: Plan, Predict, and Burn - The New Prescribed Burn Planner
Wednesday, December 17, 2025, 1pm ET

Join Karen Cummins and Dr. Holly Nowell from Tall Timbers for a free one hour webinar as they demonstrate the Prescribed Burn Planner v2’s new capabilities.

The Prescribed Burn Planner (PBP) was originally developed to help users plan and prioritize prescribed burns by providing weather forecasts for individual burn units, thus hopefully reducing the number of missed burn windows. After receiving funding support from USDA Forest Service, Southern Region (R8), PBP version 2 was created to take prescribed burn planning to the next level.

The new release includes:

  • Updated meteorological data

  • Ability to draw the boundaries of a burn unit, rather than just a point location

  • Simple smoke plume modeling with a list of potentially impacted locations

  • Burn history tracking

  • Email notification for upcoming ideal burn windows as specified by the user for each individual location.

Register for the Webinar

The National Wildfire Mitigation Awards (WMAs) recognize outstanding work and significant program impact in wildfire preparedness and mitigation. The program was established in 2014 by the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the USDA Forest Service (USFS), including the National Wildfire Mitigation Award, the National Mitigation Hero Award, and the Wildfire Mitigation Legacy Award.

Nominations for the 2026 awards are open and must be submitted by January 7, 2026. Past awardees, both individuals and organizations, have displayed outstanding dedication to wildfire mitigation across a broad spectrum of activities.

Submit Nominations Here

Wildfire Wednesdays #172: Full Cost Accounting of Wildfires

Happy Wednesday, Fireshed Community!

How do we measure the cost of a wildfire? The financial burden of suppression and containment efforts is one metric which is documented fairly consistently at the national level; however, this doesn’t account for the broader range of expenses such as property damages, public health impacts, and long-term economic, social, and environmental impacts. A 2013 study out of New Mexico found that the full cost of wildfires far exceeds suppression, that costs vary significantly from fire to fire, and that direct and indirect costs are incurred first by individuals and private businesses and then by federal, state, and local governments. Today’s newsletter dives into full cost accounting of wildfires, a perspective shift which can help to highlight the financial, as well as ecological, importance of fire prevention and resilience work.

This Wildfire Wednesday features:

Stay warm and healthy,
Rachel

 

What is Full Cost Accounting?

“Wildfire costs greatly vary depending on factors within the built and unbuilt environment. Socioeconomic context, housing density, the duration and size of a wildfire, and other variables influence the overall cost. In general, upward trends in urban growth and development in areas at risk to wildfires suggest a parallel rise in total wildfire costs.” On average (nationally), suppression costs comprise only about 9% of total wildfire costs, and “almost half of all wildfire costs are paid for at the local level, including homeowners, businesses, and government agencies. Many local wildfire costs are due to long-term damages to community and environmental services, such as landscape rehabilitation, lost business and tax revenues, and property and infrastructure repairs” (Headwaters Economics, 2018) and other unexpected impacts such as declining property values after a fire, harm to health, and changes to ecosystem processes. The economic impacts of wildfire can permeate and accrue for years to decades. Full cost accounting takes all of these fiscal impacts into consideration to reach a more holistic estimate of the cost of wildfire.

“Full cost accounting after wildfires is critical for adequate government budgeting, post-wildfire resource allocation such as disaster recovery assistance and understanding the full scope of wildfire to help communities learn to better live with fire” (Hjerpe et el., 2023). For a good overview of the complexity of full cost accounting, view this blog from the Council of Western State Foresters.

How is full cost accounting measured?

Full cost accounting is dependent on a number of highly nuanced factors. The Full Cost of New Mexico Wildfires mentions that:

  • Costs depend on the location of the wildfire as well as the severity and length. For example, a wildfire occurring near a heavily populated area may result in significant evacuation costs through displacement of residents and businesses, and smoke-related illnesses will likely be greater. In contrast, a wildfire occurring in a remote area may incur more costs through impacts to wildlife habitats, watershed and water supplies, or recreation areas.

  • Costs are incurred initially and over succeeding years - there is a temporal dimension to wildfire costs. Many costs are incurred during or immediately after the fire and their impacts are relatively temporary (e.g. suppression, evacuation, disruption of tourism and transportation routes) while others (e.g. impacts to respiratory health and water sources and destruction of habitat, timber resources, residential and commercial structures, and watershed areas) may occur concurrent with the wildfire but the rehabilitation, rebuilding, and repair will take much longer.

    • In the arid American West, long-term damage to forest watershed resources (such as damaged water supply infrastructure and post-wildfire flooding) may represent the largest, and least documented, costs of uncharacteristic wildfire over time (Lynch, 2004).

 

A national average of the breakdown of full wildfire costs over time from Headwaters Economics. It should be noted that the exact proportions vary widely from one fire to the next depending on local factors.

 

  • The burden of costs varies - just as the magnitude and type of cost is case-specific for each wildfire, the distribution of who absorbs these costs is different for each incident. 

The Western Forestry Leadership Coalition published a 2022 report which breaks costs down into three categories -

Those costs which occur as a result of a wildfire:

  1. Direct Costs, which are incurred directly during an incident.

  2. Indirect Costs — losses which are incurred after an incident but are attributable to it.

And those which represent expenditures that would reduce the incidence of and damage from future catastrophic fire:

3. Indirect Costs — mitigation Investments.

 
 
Read the full report for a detailed breakdown
 

FCA in New Mexico and the Southwest

While there are examples of full cost accounting for fires in the West (see “Case Studies”, pages 7-16), the practice is still comparatively rare because of the difficulty obtaining the relevant data. A recent remeasure of the full cost of the 2010 Schultz Fire in Arizona, while illuminating the longevity of post-fire impacts and expenses, was still conservative as it did not account for every potential direct and indirect ‘net value change’ (e.g. non-mortality related impacts to physical and mental health).

2013 Full Cost Accounting of the Schultz fire estimated total costs around $138.8 million; ten years later, researchers found that costs had continued to accrue to the tune of $179.1 - 187.4 million.


This remeasure found that 10 years post-fire, total accrued wildfire costs were 29–35% higher than the initial full cost accounting performed in 2013, bringing the current-day cost for this 15,000-acre fire to ~$180.4 million. The authors write “given the trends of increasing wildfire severity and duration of fire seasons, combined with… myriad costs of wildfire, it is safe to assume the full costs of wildfire are vastly underrepresented and enormous. Additionally, as the Schultz Fire example demonstrates, a single fire often has many costs that are difficult to quantify and are temporally dispersed, such as costs to ecosystem services or community well-being. This further emphasizes the importance of proactive fuel treatments and forest restoration work to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic fire and restore ecosystem health… Millions of dollars may have been saved by forest restoration treatments in key parts of the Schultz Fire perimeter before the fire.”

Types of Forest Restoration Benefits Quantified in the Literature (Gray boxes are broad benefit types; blue boxes are individual benefit types that compose broad AWC categories).
From https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108244

One key to understanding the full cost of wildfires is recognizing that these climbing costs and consequences are linked to increasingly uncharacteristic fire behavior and impacts driven by changes to our climate and ecosystem conditions. In these southwestern fire adapted landscapes, wildfires can also result in ecological benefits, especially in the areas that do not burn at high severity and are long overdue for fire. It is when fires burn hot and large enough to cause severe impacts to ecosystem functions and communities that the damages really begin to accrue. Forest restoration treatments result in overall lower-severity fires, which lessens the intensity of subsequent impacts, including post-wildfire flooding; “in the most valuable and at-risk watersheds, every dollar invested in forest restoration can provide up to seven dollars of return in the form of benefits and provide a return-on-investment of 600%” (Hjerpe, 2024).

The fire prevention triangle, adapted from Riebold (1957) and NWCG (2021). Illustrated by Kara Skye Gibson. Sourced from Preventing Human-Caused Wildfire Ignitions on Public Lands: A Review of Best Practices

Investing in prevention of human-caused ignitions and emerging wildfire detection tools and technology are also promising financially prudent measures to avoid or reduce the full cost of wildfires. These approaches can decrease the number of wildfires which burn into communities and devastate landscapes - especially during times of the year when wildfires are more prone to rapid spread and growth in intensity due to weather, wind, and availability of fuel. Remote sensing enables the early identification and tracking of wildfires over large geographic areas, providing valuable information for engagement, decision-making, and fire resources allocation. Decision-support data products may have a large impact in some situations (e.g., an extreme day with multiple ignitions, a fire threatening a high value asset, etc.), and a limited impact in others (e.g., wet fire seasons, fire activity beyond the capacity of suppression resources, etc.). Preventing or mitigating one future extreme event may economically justify these tools many times over (Hope et al., 2024). While the cost of operating fire detection tools (towers, cameras, etc.) exceeds their value in the reduction of direct suppression costs, the benefits are realized in the reduction of total wildfire costs. Further research on the cost-benefit ratio of these tools is needed as current analyses are limited.

 

Upcoming Opportunities and Additional Resources

Job Opportunities with NM Forestry Division

Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Manager

New Mexico Forestry Division is currently hiring for a Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Manager. The position application will be open through December 5, 2025.

This position will manage the state's Community Wildfire Defense Grant program. The position responsibilities are to manage, direct, and actively engages in forest and watershed management and community wildfire risk reduction within the Forestry Division's jurisdiction of 43 million acres of state and non-municipal private land. The position is responsible for ensuring the eligible local governments, Tribes and non-governmental organizations receive funding for Community Wildfire Protection Planning (CWPP) and implementation of wildfire mitigation projects described in CWPP.

For questions about the position, please reach out to Melissa McLamb, (505) 394-2277, (Melissa.McLamb@emnrd.nm.gov).

Permanent Part-Time Engine Boss

This is a Lead Wildland Firefighter (EMNRD #10116150) job located in Tierra Amarilla out of the Chama District. This position application will be open through January 1, 2026. The salary is $26.57 - $39.86 Hourly, $55,273 - $82,909 Annually (Pay Band C7). To learn more and apply, please visit the Forestry Division’s Careers site.

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Fire Planning Task Force Updates

November 2025 Public Meeting Minutes

On November 17th, 2025, the NM Fire Planning Task Force convened to review recommendations from the CWPP Sub-group, hear updates from both the Mapping and Standards Sub-group, hear a report on F.A.I.R Insured Home Hardening Grants, and more.

The attached minutes provide more details on all agenda items including:

  • Outcomes from the review of CWPPs from Eddy County, Sandavol County, and Eldorado Communities

  • Adoption of the IBHS Wildfire prepared Home standards as voluntary standards for home hardening and mitigation in New Mexico

  • Pilot of the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance’s Home Hardening grant in Wimsatt, New Mexico

View the Minutes

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Reserved Treaty Rights Lands Program: The Power of Partnership

The Nature Conservancy in Montana produced a short video, “Reserved Treaty Rights Lands Program: The Power of Partnership,” which looks at how the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are working with the Bureau of Land Management and The Nature Conservancy to conduct burns on off-reservation lands with Tribal treaty rights in a unique partnership made possible by the Reserved Treaty Rights Lands (RTRL) program. The RTRL program, which is administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, provides funds to protect and enhance natural and cultural resources on Tribes’ aboriginal lands that are at high risk of wildfire.

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Treatment and Wildfire Interagency Geodatabase (TWIG)

The Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes (SWERI) have launched the 1.0 version of their free tool, the Treatment and Wildfire Interagency Geodatabase (TWIG), a collaborative, open-access data platform that makes national fuel treatment and wildfire information accessible to all.  

 
 

As a national, open-access geodatabase, TWIG centralizes federal treatment and wildfire data in one publicly available platform. By doing so, it:

• Empowers communities and land managers to demonstrate the effectiveness of fuel treatments

• Helps researchers and policymakers understand treatment-wildfire interactions at landscape and local scales

• Promotes cross-agency coordination and transparency in wildfire risk reduction efforts

Wildfire Wednesdays #171: Fire Preparedness Frameworks, Risk Reduction, and Insurability

Happy Fire Friday!

Fire adaptation is an alternative to the costly and ineffective model of relying solely on fire suppression for community safety; it empowers communities to prepare for wildland fires, mitigate their impacts, and recover more effectively when they inevitably occur. However, there are many tools, pathways, and angles to consider when creating fire ready communities. Firewise, a program of NFPA, has gained popularity over the last decade as a means to get neighbors and friends engaged with defensible space and home hardening, as well as a way to retain insurability. The program and title of Firewise Recognized Community is one tool, one approach, and it nestles will with other programs and frameworks. Since November 20th marks the renewal deadline for communities who are Firewise Recognized, today we will be exploring some of these tools and programs in-depth, how they differ and can work in tandem to educate and motivate, and how following the recommendations of each one may impact a community’s risk vs insurability.

This Wildfire Wednesday Features:

Be well,
Rachel

 

Simplifying Firewise and FAC

This information was originally shared in Wildfire Wednesday #96; view the newsletter and watch the recent FACNM webinar to learn more, including how to choose the right program for your community.

What is Firewise?

The Firewise USA recognition program is administered by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community and to reduce wildfire risks at the local level. As Firewise Program Manager puts it, Firewise “fits into [the Fire Adapted Communities framework] as a tool. It’s not the only tool and it doesn’t do all things. It is the built environment piece [of the FAC preparedness wheel] - how do we help self-defined neighborhoods come together and get started on that [fire preparedness] pathway?”

Firewise focuses primarily on homeowner and resident fire mitigation before a wildfire. Their recommended mitigation actions include home hardening, fortification of the home ignition zone, organization of a Firewise community board, neighborhood risk reduction activities, and joining the program as a Firewise USA Site.

Through risk assessments, community organization, and individual and collective action, the goal of Firewise is to effectively lower community susceptibility to fire.

New applications can be completed online at portal.firewise.org. More information on creating a firewise home and community can be found below.

 


What is the Fire Adapted Communities (FAC) Framework?

Fire Adapted Communities is a holistic, adaptive, and comprehensive framework to help communities live better with wildfires. A fire adapted community is one which understands its risk and takes action during all phases of the wildfire cycle - before, during, and after - to be more resilient. FAC was born out of the 2009 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. FAC looks beyond residents and individual actions and broadens the scope of what it means to be fire ready.

The Firewise USA® recognition program is one of many tools a community can use to address its fire risk. Focused primarily on residents and residential action, the Firewise USA® program is an important piece of the wildfire adaptation puzzle. The International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Ready, Set, Go! Program, focusing on empowering fire departments to communicate with their constituents, is another common tool used as part of a community’s overall fire adaptation framework. Additional strategies such as evacuation planning, developing and updating community wildfire protection plans, adopting WUI codes and ordinances, conducting controlled burns and performing post-fire recovery planning all contribute to a fire adapted community.

View the FAC community resilience framework, smoke ready framework, and suite of actions by clicking on the graphics below.

FAC encompasses the Fire Adapted Learning Network, a peer learning and professional relationship-building initiative. FAC Net connects people to resources and to other practitioners so they can share approaches, tailor strategies for their place, and make a difference in wildfire outcomes on-the-ground. They combine support for on-the-ground project work with professional development, peer learning and coaching, and long-range strategic planning.

While FAC offers many resources and opportunities to learn from other people doing similar work, there is no formal fire adapted communities recognition program. It does not guarantee prevention of ignitions nor does following the recommendations tailored to your community lead to a certification.

 

Program impact: insurability vs risk reduction

What is impactful risk reduction?

Frameworks like Fire Adapted Communities incorporate decades of lessons learned and recommendations from fire experts to provide a comprehensive suite of actions that individuals and communities can take to reduce their overall fire risk, increase their home and property’s chances of survival, lessen the devastation and interruption to daily life that wildfires cause, and work together to recover better after a fire happens. These approaches are focused on hazard mitigation, education, preparation, and teaching communities how to live with fire.

Image from Wildfire Risk to Communities.

The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy is a strategic push to work collaboratively among all stakeholders and across all landscapes, using best science, to make meaningful progress toward three goals:
- Resilient Landscapes
- Fire Adapted Communities
- Safe and Effective Wildfire Response

The frameworks encourage community-level participation, because research has shown that collective action - everyone working individually, alongside their neighbors, to reduce their hazardous fuels, improve their structure’s fire resistance, advocate for improved routes of ingress and egress, etc. - creates a broad net of protection which is far more effective at reducing the impacts of a wildfire on the community than isolated individual action. Learn more about reducing risk. Following the recommended actions and approaches of these frameworks may help improve fire outcomes for the community; however, they do not guarantee insurability of homes and businesses.

What influences insurability?

“Viewed through a risk management lens, wildfire risk… throughout the western United States is becoming uninsurable. Risk is the product of hazard (the combination of the probability of wildfire and its characteristic intensity), exposure (where the item at risk is located and its value), and vulnerability (how damaging wildfire is to the item at risk)” (TNC, 2021). Insurance providers base their coverage decisions on many factors; when it comes to wildfire, underwriters will consider a property's fire protection class, location, proximity to fire services, exposure to nearby fire hazards, and the potential for loss as well as external factors such as wildfire and climate risk models. These factors culminate in an assessment and risk classification which then informs whether the insurer will offer coverage, and if so under what policy terms (e.g. coverage limits, deductibles, exclusions) and at what price. Home and business owners cannot influence many insurance assessment factors (e.g. the risk rating of a specific geographic location), nor know exactly what factors any given insurance provider will use (this is proprietary information). So what can you do reduce your property’s risk classification to retain or obtain coverage?

Start with the area around your home - is the structure itself built out of highly combustible materials? Are there gaps under the porch, along the roof, between door frames and windows where embers could land and smolder? Is the landscape immediately around your house thick with flammable vegetation? These things all contribute to your property’s risk rating and can be altered and improved.

Slide from 2025 NM WUFS presentation by Ahley Dalton Agency LLC, a New Mexico insurance provider representative, speaking about fire insurance and the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Homes program.

The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) worked with insurance providers to create the Wildfire Prepared Home (WPH) program. The program is supported by property insurers and other affiliated companies, and some insurers are now offering policies for homes that meet the standard. WPH provides recommendations for creating defensible space and improving property construction by replacing highly combustible materials with fire-resistant options. This program from IBHS is coming to New Mexico in 2026; this means that residents who follow the recommendations of the program to reduce their individual risk can then have their property inspected and receive a Wildfire Prepared Home designation certificate. The certificate, which demonstrates that the home has met specific mitigation actions, can then be shown to insurance companies. The designation is valid for three years. Learn more about the potential for loss of insurance and the space IBHS is looking to fill by viewing this presentation from the 2025 New Mexico Wildland Urban Fire Summit.

Additional actions that a community can take to improve their chances of retaining fire insurance include:

Image from Living With Fire

  • Adopt and enforce local codes (such as defensible space ordinances) that require fire-adapted landscaping and/or ignition-resistant building materials and design.

  • Thin vegetation in common areas (not just individual properties) to reduce wildfire risk.

    • Create defensible space on neighboring public lands by working with public land agency urban lot management programs.

  • Improve infrastructure by creating clear emergency alert systems and evacuation routes and increasing access to fire hydrants.

  • Improve access by ensuring roads are wide enough for emergency response vehicles (fire engines) to pass and home addresses are clearly visible from the street.

  • Work with local fire departments and specialists to conduct professional home and community hazard assessments and develop mitigation strategies.

 

Additional resources

Upcoming virtual town hall from the NM Fire Planning Task Force

The next public meeting of the New Mexico Fire planning task force, hosted by the Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) Forestry Division, will be held at 9:00 AM on Monday, November 17th, 2025. Agenda items include updates from the wildfire risk priority mapping, defensible space standards, and communications sub-groups; an update on F.A.I.R. Insured Home Hardening Grants; a report from the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) sub-group; State Forester’s update; a round robin open discussion; and time for public comment. View the full announcement and instructions for joining virtually (recommended due to limited space) or in-person.

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Resources for renters

Many fire preparedness and educational resources are targeted toward home and business owners, leaving short- and long-term renters in an information void. Scroll down to see resources collected and tailored to renters:

  • Short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO are increasing across the Southwest. While beneficial for local economies, many visitors are unaware of the state’s wildfire risks or how to stay informed. To address this, the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative created a wildfire information packet for short-term rentals. This customizable resource educates guests on wildfire risks and provides tools to help them stay informed and make safer choices.

  • As of 2023, 30.7% of housing units in New Mexico were renter-occupied (U.S. Census Bureau). Additionally, certain demographic groups—such as young adults and individuals with less formal education—are more likely to rent, and rental rates among these groups have increased nationwide over the past decade. To help promote wildfire preparedness for all New Mexicans, Wildfire Wednesday #156 focused on resources for renters, including topics like evacuation planning, renters’ insurance, and post-fire recovery.

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Upcoming webinars

Thursday, November 20, 2025, 2:00pm MT: Wood you believe it? Aspen interactions with fire and wildfire spread in the Southwest

From disease resilience to browse pressure, recreational value to fire resistance, aspen has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years. This webinar will offer insights on various aspects of the intersection between aspen forests and fire in the Southwestern U.S., including: the ability of aspen to slow fire growth and act as a firebreak, fire radiative power/burn severity in aspen forests of the Southern Rockies, and the relationship between stand composition and suppression strategies.

Register now

Highlights from A Field Tour of Forest Treatments in the Santa Fe Mountains

Greetings,

In early August 2025, the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition held its summer-season quarterly meeting as a field tour in the forests northeast of Santa Fe.

The goals of this tour were to (1) observe local projects to improve landscape resilience to high-severity wildfire and (2) discuss priorities for continued landscape-scale restoration work into the future. Attendees from a diverse range of organizations and affiliations generated interesting discussion, including goals and adaptations for where the Coalition is headed. Scroll down to read about five highlights of the field tour, including:

  1. Takeaways from decades of fire ecology research in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed

  2. Forest treatments underway in the Santa Fe Mountains

  3. Outcomes of past forest treatments in Pacheco Canyon

  4. Post-fire flood impacts in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed

  5. The Pueblo of Tesuque’s stewardship of ancestral lands

Additionally, the City of Santa Fe produced a long-form video of the field tour; please check it out if you are interested in taking a virtual visit!

— Maya

 
 

Field Tour Stop #1

The field tour’s first stop was the pullout about 1 mile down Forest Road 102 (roughly 1/3 mile west of Big Tesuque Campground).

 

Takeaways from decades of fire ecology research in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed

Local U.S.G.S. research ecologist Ellis Margolis, Ph.D., explained that researchers have spent decades collecting samples of tree ring fire scars in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed. (Fire scars in tree rings show when a fire burned and scarred a tree, and then the tree healed over the wound and “lived to tell about it.”)

Researchers have 36 plots across the Fireshed, from the Rio en Medio area into the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed and south to La Cueva. They’ve dated fire scars from over 300 sampled trees, with over 1,400 individual tree ring fire scars dated. The oldest tree ring records going back into the 1300s and the last recorded fire was in 1880, Margolis said.

“The ubiquitous story is fires didn’t used to kill trees; now they’re killing everything,” he said.

“We have one (sampled) tree that survived and recorded 18 fires over its life. I mean, how many trees in the modern fires are surviving any, if not multiple (fires)? It starts to paint this picture of: There used to be fire all the time… but it was not killing the majority of the trees.”

By stitching together networks of samples, researchers have also been able to study the size of historical fires. Two fires in 1685 and 1748, for example, burned almost every tree researchers sampled, indicating their area burned reached over 35,000 acres.

The takeaway: “Fire used to be really ubiquitous,” Margolis said, “but much lower severity.”

What changed? The Forest Service began aggressively suppressing all wildland fires in the early 1900s. And most of the fires in the Santa Fe Fireshed had actually stopped before then – in the late 1800s – due to overgrazing.

A dense stand at field tour Stop #1. Tree ring fire scars show that historically, fires occurred on average about every 14 years, Dr. Margolis said.

“If you do the quick math, we owe this forest 10 fires. And that’s why you get that,” he said, pointing to the dense mixed conifer.

The railroad arrived in Lamy, New Mexico in 1879, leading to an immediate and exponential expansion the grazing industry, and the last widespread fire the Santa Fe Fireshed was in 1880, Margolis said.

“This also gives you a little bit of a clue about what those fires were. If cows could have put out the fires, they weren't big, raging infernos where you drop in DC-10 slurry drops on them. They were little surface fires burning through grass. Then, the cows ate all the grass, and you couldn’t burn it anymore,” he said.

Now we have “145 years worth of fuel build up, 145 years of tree regeneration, and this is the problem that we hand over to our forest managers,” Margolis said.

Projects to age trees from tree rings indicate much lower tree densities in 1880 than today. Data from other monitoring projects in the Fireshed shows average current tree densities of around 700 trees per acre. That’s probably five times as many trees per acre today than historically, upwards of 10 times as many trees per acre, Margolis said.

The good news is we now “understand how we got here and where we need to go back to. These forests were much more resilient when fire was burning through them historically, so this sets the table for some of the management,” he continued.

“This forest WILL burn again, and hopefully we can get it back to a state of surviving these fires.”

Dr. Margolis shared data from researchers’ sampling plot nearest to the field tour stop. Horizontal lines show the records of individual trees sampled for tree ring fire scars. Vertical tick marks are the fire scars. Note that the most recent fire was in 1880, nearly 150 years ago.

 
 

Forest treatments underway in the Santa Fe Mountains

 

Piles of trees thinned as part of the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project. The piles will be burned under snow during the winter.

 

At the field tour’s first stop, the Coalition observed thinned forest with unburnt piles south of Forest Road 102. The Forest Service had thinned and created the piles in the spring 2025 and will burn the piles while under snow during this upcoming winter (given the right snowy conditions) as part of the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project.

Rian Ream, the Assistant Fire Management Officer for Española Ranger District and former fuels planner on the Santa Fe National Forest, explained the design of the treatments the group observed along Tesuque Creek: Santa Fe National Forest managers chose to focus on mixed-conifer forest in Tesuque Canyon partly because of the opportunity to anchor off of two already thinned and burned areas—Pacheco Canyon and the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed. Crews thinned fuel breaks along four treatment units in Tesuque Canyon by cutting conifers under 9’’ diameter (except white pine and aspen, which were not cut) and built piles of the downed material. Once those piles have been burned under snow, crews will dig hand lines along containment lines before the units will be ready for broadcast burning.

“The main thing we’re dealing with here is the fire problem,” Ream said, adding that a high-severity fire would be detrimental to wildlife habitat and watershed function. “This is going to burn, it’s just a matter of when.”

The challenge with prescribed fire is “it’s really getting harder and harder to find a good window to burn within,” particularly given stricter prescription parameters Santa Fe National Forest has written into burn plans since escaped prescribed fires grew into the destructive 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire.

Managed fires would make a bigger impact for landscape resiliency (plus could be easier to implement, since firefighting resources come from across the country for a managed fire but not for a prescribed fire), but some vocal public opposition has meant “we’re just not there in the Santa Fe Fireshed yet to do that,” Ream said.

The good news is that about two decades of work thinning and prescribed burning the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed has put the watershed in “a much healthier situation,” said Eytan Krasilovsky, Deputy Director of the Forest Stewards Guild.

But one of the impetuses for the formation of the Greater Santa Fe Firehsed Coalition in 2016 was the recognition of the need to work north and south of the municipal watershed, he added. “All these watersheds need work, and if we can avoid some of the catastrophes that we're seeing around the country and in New Mexico, then it's all going to be worth it.”

Field Tour Stop #2

For the second stop on the field tour, we parked at Aspen Ranch Trailhead and walked northwest along a 2019 prescribed burn implemented through the Pacheco Canyon project.

 

Outcomes of past forest treatments in Pacheco Canyon

In 2016, the Reserve Treaty Rights Lands program rolled out, and the Pueblo of Tesuque collaborated with the Forest Service over the following years to plan and execute an over 2,000- acre forest treatment in Pacheco Canyon, said Pueblo of Tesuque Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Environmental Biologist Ryan Swazo-Hinds.

Prescribed fire cleaned up the understory as intended, but the biggest success of the project was enabling firefighters to contain the 2020 Medio Fire – a fire ignited by lightning, Ream said.

Ream, who responded to the fire, said the Medio Fire was on the move and “would have burned all the way up to the ski area and possibly into the Santa Fe watershed,” but “luckily, we had this prescribed burn unit.”

“Even though that thing had a head of steam, when it hit that fuel break where it had been thinned out, it changed to a lower severity,” he said.

 

Post-fire flood impacts in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed

The Medio Fire, which burned roughly 4,000 acres, still had significant post-fire flood impacts, said Steve Vrooman, president of Keystone Restoration Ecology, which implemented a post-fire watershed stabilization project on the Rio en Medio following the Medio Fire.

A few years following the fire, the Rio en Medio flooded when a rainstorm dumped 3 ¼ inches in an hour and caused a cascading debris dam down the drainage, Vroom said. “Above that, this watershed is in pretty good condition. I mean, it got affected, but the ponderosas are still there, it still looks like the same stream; below that, it doesn't,” he said.

“Frankly one of the biggest impacts (of fire) is the flooding, as we’ve see in Ruidoso and Bandelier,” Vrooman continued. “The loss of trees is huge, impacts to wildlife are huge, but the post-fire flooding impacts are probably the biggest one. Things that can happen are you can lose most of your sediments in the watershed, you can lose the function of your streams, and you can actually lose the ability for that stream to support fish, to provide water to irrigators, and to even feed the watershed.”

“There’s generally a bifurcation between watershed restoration and fire. We don’t always talk together, and we need to be,” he continued. “The watershed impacts from fire can be extreme, and those are impacts that happen if we don't do what’s been talked about today… We thin to prevent flooding.”

Alan Hook, City of Santa Fe Water Division Water Resources Coordinator, added that post-fire flooding threats to the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed are still daunting, although forest treatments in the watershed have reduced that risk, a 2024 study showed.

The study concluded that a moderate- to high-severity wildfire in the watershed followed by a heavy rain event would fill part or most of the city reservoir with sediment, Hook said.

“That's a big risk for us as water utility – a big, big risk,” he said. “That means we’ve got to rely on San Juan-Chama Project water, which is coming from Colorado, and then secondarily, much of our supply would have to be pumped out of the groundwater near the Rio Grande in our city well field for a very long time… I mean, hate to break the news: We’re really not prepared for that.”

Information from the study may help the city create an emergency action plan for post-fire flooding in the watershed, Hook said.

The city does have funding capacity to support further forest treatments, he added, noting the city is spending roughly $50 million to upgrade Nichols and McClure dams – “it’s just a matter of convincing engineers and managers to invest in the green infrastructure instead of what's called gray infrastructure (pipes, dams, reservoirs, pumps). So that's kind of where we need the impetus of the public, because we are a community-owned utility,” he said.

Field Tour Stop #3

For the field tour’s final stop, the Coalition gathered at on the Pueblo of Tesuque’s lands at Aspen Ranch (which are not open to the public without tribal permission).

 

The Pueblo of Tesuque's stewardship of ancestral lands

In the early 2010s, the Pueblo of Tesuque and Santa Fe National Forest signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which later enabled a collaborative, cross-boundary prescribed burn — on Forest Service land and the Pueblo of Tesuque’s Vigil Grant — during the Pacheco Canyon project.

“Having those prior relationships, we’re able to work (with the Forest Service) on other stuff such as water quality and erosion control,” said Joseph Abeyta, the Pueblo of Tesuque DENR Interim Director and Water Quality Specialist. “So Tesuque is evolving with these relationships with multiple agencies, … and it’s a good opportunity for us because everything overlaps: water quality, forestry, wildfire, wildlife.”

The Pueblo has a cold-water fisheries designation for the Rio en Medio at Aspen Ranch and is looking to reintroduce native Rio Grande cutthroat trout as well as potentially beavers, Abeyta and Swazo-Hinds said.

One challenge at Aspen Ranch has been that, though the forest has long been thinned and piled, the Pueblo hasn’t yet received support from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to burn the piles. The Santa Fe National Forest can boss the pile burn but does not have capacity to monitor until the burn is out, which is where capacity from BIA or outside partners will hopefully come in, Swazo-Hinds said.

 

A field tour stop where the 2020 Medio Fire reached the area of a 2019 prescribed burn in Pacheco Canyon.

Coalition partner organizations present for the field tour included the Santa Fe National Forest, U.S. Geological Survey, Pueblo of Tesuque, City of Santa Fe Water Division, City of Santa Fe Fire Department, Santa Fe Watershed Association, Santa Fe Conservation Trust, Forest Stewards Guild, New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute, and Santa Fe-Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation District, along with additional contacts and VIPs.

 

Building Stonger Communities Through Volunteer Fire Service

Happy Fire Friday Santa Fe Fireshed community!

Across New Mexico, volunteer fire departments are the backbone of wildfire protection and emergency response. A volunteer firefighter’s work extends far beyond fighting fires; they provide emergency medical care, lead community education and prevention programs, and partner with land management agencies to protect lives and landscapes. In a state that is largely rural, these volunteers make up nearly 78% of the firefighting force. Yet, as State Fire Marshal Randy Varela shared at this year’s New Mexico Wildland Urban Fire Summit, there are only about 4,000 volunteer firefighters serving the entire state, and their average age is 65. This reality highlights a critical challenge: volunteer fire departments urgently need more local support to sustain their ability to keep communities safe.

This week’s blog looks at how community members, no matter their background, can help strengthen their local volunteer fire departments (VFDs) and shares inspiring success stories of local VFDs increasing their capacity. Supporting your local VFD is one of the most powerful ways to promote community safety, resilience, and equitable access to emergency services for everyone.

This Fire Friday features:

Be well,
Megan

Supporting New Mexico’s Volunteer Fire Departments: A Call to Community Action

Why it Matters

Across the country, communities rely on volunteer firefighter and yet, that force is shrinking. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, there were about 676,900 volunteer firefighters in 2020, a sharp decline from 897,750 in 1984, when the NFPA first began tracking this data. This demonstrates the steady decline in volunteer personnel while emergency response calls steadily increase. This volunteer shortage doesn’t just affect who shows up when a fire breaks out, but it also has broader impacts on community safety, insurance rates, and local resilience.

Staffing Impacts Your Community’s Insurance and Safety

The number of volunteers in a local fire department directly influences a community’s Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating. An ISO rating evaluates fire departments and the communities they serve, assigning scores on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 represents the highest level of fire protection and 10 indicates that the department does not meet minimum standards. These ratings are important because insurance companies often use them to determine fire insurance premiums for homes and businesses.

To effectively respond to a fire, a volunteer fire department must have at least four responders. If a department cannot meet that minimum, its ISO rating could instantly drop to a 10, triggering a ripple effect that raises insurance costs for the entire community. Maintaining a strong volunteer base is therefore essential, not only for public safety, but also for insurance rates for the whole community.

How to Support Your Local VFD

Even if you do not want to participate in direct response, there are still many ways you can support your local VFD.

Volunteer - One of the most impactful ways to support your local firefighters is by volunteering your time and skills so firefighters can focus on protecting lives and property. Volunteer firefighters often require additional assistance in various non-emergency roles including:

  • Administrative Support: Non-response need’s of VFD’s often include record-keeping, data/report entry, or cleaning/maintaining equipment.

  • Fundraising: Help organize fundraising events or campaigns to generate funds for necessary equipment, training, and resources. Fundraising initiatives can include community events, donation drives, or partnerships with local businesses.

  • Community Outreach: Assist with community outreach programs, which can involve educating the community on fire safety, organizing public awareness events, or conducting fire prevention campaigns.

Donate Supplies and Equipment - Fire departments rely on well-maintained gear, equipment, and essential supplies. While local governments often provide funding, additional community donations can make a significant difference in ensuring firefighters have what they need to effectively respond to emergencies.

Spread Awareness - Help raise awareness about the work of volunteer firefighters and the challenges they face. Use social media, community newsletters, or local media outlets. Share stories, highlight their accomplishments, and encourage others to support their local fire department. Increased awareness can lead to a more robust support system for firefighters and attract more individuals to join the department.

The best way to join your local VFD and learn more about what assistance they need is to reach out to your local department directly.

If you’re unsure which departments serve your area, you can explore the Fire District Response Boundaries (FDRB) dataset, created by the National Association of State Foresters (NASF). This map provides a visual of fire district boundaries and was last updated in April 2025 for New Mexico.


Incentives in NM to Join Your Local VFD

Beyond the reward of serving your community, New Mexico offers tangible benefits for volunteer firefighters. Individuals who serve as a volunteer firefighter in New Mexico are eligible to access a retirement.

Volunteer Firefighter Retirement - Established in 1983, the Volunteer Firefighters Retirement Act allows volunteer firefighter’s at least 55 years old and with at least 10 years of service to qualify for a pension.

The monthly amount of you pension is determined by your years of service.

    • At least age 55 with 25 or more years of service you will receive $250 per month

    • At least age 55 with 10 or more years of service you will receive $125 per month

You will earn one year of service credit as a volunteer firefighter for each year that you:

    • Attend 50% of all scheduled drills;

    • Attend 50% of all scheduled business meetings, and;

    • Participate in at least 50% of all emergency response calls you held responsible to attend.

These benefits recognize the vital role that volunteer firefighters play in protecting New Mexico’s people, landscapes, and communities.

Learn more about NM's Volunteer Firefighter Retirement

Local VFD Successes

As mentioned above, sharing the stories and accomplishments of volunteer fire departments helps build community pride and inspires others to get involved. FACNM is proud to spotlight some local VFD successes, particularly those made possible through the Volunteer Fire Assistance (VFA) Grant Program.

Through the VFA program, local fire departments can secure funding to purchase wildland firefighting equipment and strengthen their capacity for wildfire response. These grants make a difference in ensuring communities across New Mexico remain prepared and protected.

FY25 VFA Success Story - County of Sierra Emergency Services

Sierra County Emergency Services is made up of 7 county volunteer fire departments, with 2 paid members and 100 volunteer firefighters, serving over 4236 square miles. Upon receiving a VFA grant, Sierra County Emergency Services was able to purchase much needed personal protective equipment, apparatus equipment, Bendix King radios, and fire hose/fittings.

The equipment has been placed on a reserve type 6 brush truck, available for county wide fire response. That apparatus can now be used as a backup type 6 engine for any of their fire districts in the event that a unit is down for repairs. The increasing effectiveness this equipment gives Sierra County helps their surrounding communities and partners by allowing volunteers to provide adequate mutual-aid response to all emergencies.


FY25 VFA Success Story - Cochiti Volunteer Fire Department

The Cochiti Fire Department (CFD) is a primarily volunteer municipal fire department comprised of 30 volunteer firefighters and EMTs, located in northeastern Sandoval County with a response area spanning 181 square miles. The Cochiti Fire Department was the recipient of the VFA Wildland Coordinator Grant, implemented in 2023, allowing CFD to hire Captain Dominick Ortiz. Wildland Coordinator Ortiz organized training for 25 new wildland firefighters from across the region and was integral to the success of implementing the Cochiti Wildfire Risk Reduction plan.

Cochiti VFD firefighters facilitating an After Action Review (AAR) after assisting on Cochiti Pueblo’s agricultural burn.

The intent of the plan was to educate the public on safe practices during seasonal agricultural burns, provide firefighter training, and promote multi-agency cooperation. Implementation of the plan resulted in over 200 acres of agricultural fields safely and successfully treated for the growing season, as well as 20+ firefighters and farmers received hands on training in a controlled environment. Cochiti firefighters participated in approximately 1500 hours of collective training in the 2023 season.

To learn more about other counties and municipalities that have successfully received VFA grant funding, visit: Volunteer Fire Assistance (VFA) Grant – Forestry

Upcoming Opportunities

Join the Natural Resources Journal, UNM School of Law, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, and the Intermountain West Transformation Network for the “Life After Fire: (Re)Imagining Post Fire Recovery for Headwater Dependent Communities” symposium on Friday, October 24, 2025 in the UNM Continuing Education Building in Albuquerque, NM.

This event will explore the legal, ecological, and community dimensions of post-wildfire recovery, anchored in the aftermath of the 2022 Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. This interdisciplinary event will highlight emerging research, policy responses, and adaptation strategies shaping the future of natural resource management in a warming world.

Register Now
 

Toas and Colfax County residents are invited to participate in a study discussing wildfire mitigation in the Enchanted Circle. Participants will be asked to share their thoughts and experiences related to wildfire mitigation, and take part in an interactive demonstration and discussion exploring wildfire treatments.

This study is part of a research collaboration between UNM, New Mexico Highlands University, Texas Tech University, and the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station.

The research team is currently gauging interest and collecting potential names of people who live in the area to participate in a virtual focus group. Individuals selected to participate will receive a $100 gift card upon completion of their participation. Space is limited.

Pre-register here or by emailing carmanmelendrez@unm.edu.

 

National Forest Foundation (NFF) is hiring a full-time, exempt 3-year term position that will support the restoration and improvement of recreation areas on the Lincoln National Forest. The Lincoln National Forest Project Coordinator will report to the New Mexico Program Manager and will work closely with other NFF Southwest Team field staff and regional nonprofit partners to cooperatively plan, develop, and implement priority projects on the Lincoln National Forest. The coordinator will assist in forestry related projects such as pre implementation unit prep, fuels reduction projects such as thinning, mastication and cut, skid, deck work, as well as community engagement, fundraising, and project management to assist in post-fire forest and water restoration projects. This work requires close coordination with the U.S. Forest Service, community organizations and implementation partners to accomplish identified goals and activities.  

Click here to view more specific position duties and responsibilities. The location for this position is Southern New Mexico in Ruidoso, Cloudcroft, Alamogordo, or Las Cruces, with the applicant able to travel regularly throughout the Lincoln National Forest.

 

In this webinar from the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, Dr. Christopher Roos and colleagues use published and unpublished tree-ring fire history records from pine forests in Arizona and New Mexico to demonstrate that Indigenous foragers, pastoralists, and farmers influenced Southwestern fire regimes in similar ways. This research shows that population size, culture, and economic organization were not limiting variables on the influence of Indigenous populations on fire regimes and that new methodological approaches may offer new insights into long histories of Indigenous fire stewardship that can contribute to discourse on contemporary fire management, fire-co-management, and restoration of traditional fire management practices.

Presenter: Dr. Christopher Roos, Professor of Anthropology and Earth Sciences, SMU

Register Now
The GSFFC is a coalition of public and private organizations. The GSFFC is not a subdivision of the State of New Mexico, as defined in the state’s Open Meetings Act, §§ 10-15-1 to 10-15-4 NMSA 1978. Although federal agencies participate in the GSFFC, the Coalition is not a federal advisory board and was not created by a federal agency, as defined by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5.U.S.C. app. 2, §§ 1 to 16 (2012). The GSFFC operates informally to support its partners, and is not incorporated as a non-profit, 501(C)(3), partnership, or other legal status.