Wildfire Wednesdays #14 - Fire Prevention - Smoke Resources - Hummingbirds and Fire

Hi Fireshed Members,

With The Fourth of July this weekend, many people are excited to get out of their homes and recreate outdoors. I know I am. This is not a typical year -- fire danger and the risk of covid-19 remain high. Fireworks, campfires, and large groups put American lives at risk this Fourth of July. We support you in encouraging your friends and families to find alternative ways to celebrate The Fourth this year.

This edition of Wildfire Wednesday includes:

• Fire prevention messages that you can share on social media to encourage your friends and family to recreate responsibility this year.

• An introduction to the smoke resources page on The Fireshed Coalition webpage

• An article that looks at the connection between hummingbirds and wildfire in fire adapted landscapes

Stay safe,

Gabe

Please Help us Prevent Wildfire! Use these social media posts!

Please help prevent wildfire by sharing these messages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or over email. If this simple step prevents one wildfire, it could save lives and will help keep our first responders safe during the 2020 fire season. Just add the flyer as a photo and use our suggested caption, or create one of your own. Then, like and follow the FACNM Facebook page so we can see your post!

Recreate Safely

Click Here to Download this Flyer!

Suggested Caption: Click Share and Help Prevent Wildfire: We all need your help to prevent wildfires this summer. The statewide average of human-caused wildfires in New Mexico is 48% of all wildfires and most of these fires can be prevented. Don’t drag chains, check spark arrestors on vehicles and equipment and for information about preventing wildfires over The Fourth of July weekend, visit https://nmfireinfo.com/   Suggested Hashtags: #recreateresponsibly #preventwildfire #nmfire #fireadaptednm

Know Before You Go

Click Here to Download this Flyer!

Suggested Caption: Click Share and Help Prevent Wildfire: Know Before You Go! Before you make plans to have any smores over the campfire check for current fire restrictions.  Campfires and fireworks are not allowed on most public and private land throughout New Mexico. For more information, call the Fire Restrictions Hotline: 1-877-864-6985 or visit https://firerestrictions.us/nm/ 

Suggested Hashtags: #recreateresponsibly #preventwildfire #nmfire #fireadaptednm 

Do Your Part, Don’t Let A Wildfire Start

Click Here to Download this Flyer!

Suggested Caption: Click Share and Help Prevent Wildfire: Firefighters and first responders are needed more than ever to keep America safe . Prevent wildfires by following fire restrictions, postponing debris burning, and using campfire alternatives.  

Suggested Hashtags: #recreateresponsibly #preventwildfire #nmfire #fireadaptednm 

Protecting yourself from Smoke during COVID

Smoke preparedness to protect you and your family has taken on a new importance with the compounding impacts of the respiratory illness from the coronavirus pandemic. Although not wildfire smoke specific, recent scientific studies from Italy and the UK (Conticini et al., 2020 & Travaglio et al., 2020) suggest that air pollutant exposure worsens COVID-19 symptoms and outcomes. This research is part of the reason why land managers have adjusted their tactics this year to try and limit smoke impacts on communities as much as possible. (see our interview with an FMO for more)

However, even with fire fighters doing their best, it is impossible to avoid smoke impacts from wildfires. If you are predisposed to respiratory ailments the best thing to do is prepare ahead of time, by monitoring smoke forecasts from www.airnov.gov and setting up a clean air room in your home to escape the effects of smoke. To do this, prevent smoke from entering and filter the air if possible. 

This page from the CDC captures some FAQs about wildfire smoke and the corona virus outbreak. Wildfire Smoke and COVID-19: FAQs

If you are thinking about setting up a Cleaner Air Shelter for your community the CDC has also released guidance: COVID-19 and Wildfire Smoke Cleaner Air Spaces

For much more information on how to prepare for smoke please visit our website. There we have information about protecting yourself from smoke, selecting an air cleaner, and more: Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition Smoke Resources

The Forest Stewards Guild is also now restarting out HEPA Air Cleaner Loan Program in some locations with new policies to limit the spread of COVID-19: Santa Fe Fireshed Air Cleaner Loan Program 

Hummingbirds and Wildfire

Hummingbirds are some of the most beloved birds to observe; whether you are an avid bird watcher, a professional ornithologist, or simply a nature lover, these beautiful birds spark joy for all. As residents of fire-adapted ecosystems, you might wonder how our colorful friends fare with wildfire. The Forest Service released a literature review this year that summarizes the studied effects of fire on species of hummingbirds throughout the United States (see link below). In their paper, Alexander and associates found that most species of hummingbirds respond positively to fire, and that many hummingbird species show higher abundance in burned forests compared with unburned areas. In their review, Alexander et al. remark that while unnaturally severe fires pose serious risks, the positive benefits these hummingbird species are receiving from less severe fires are likely connected with the health of local fire-adapted plant and insect populations. Turns out, hummingbirds are among a wealthy community of fire-adapted organisms that benefit from natural, historically consistent fire.

To read more, click here!

Upcoming Webinars

Wildfire Series: Response and Recovery

The Human Dimensions of Wildfires

Thursday, July 9, 2020 - 2:30pm

Register for the Zoom Webinar

Join us for a panel discussion on the human dimensions of wildfire response and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our panelists Luke Beckman from the Red Cross, Alma Bowen from Nuestra Comunidad, and Charles Brooks from the Rebuild Paradise Foundation will discuss the challenges and best practices for evacuations, shelters, planning and coordination, and recovery efforts in our new reality.

Panelists

• Alma Bowen, Executive Director, Nuestra Comunidad

• Charles Brooks, Executive Director, Rebuild Paradise Foundation

• Luke Beckman, Division Disaster State Relations Director, American Red Cross

Moderator

• Rebecca Miller, PhD Candidate, E-IPER

Wildfire Wednesdays #13 - FACNM Leader Profile - Forest and Wildfire Trivia Game - Wildfire Preparedness Tips

Hello Fireshed

The same as every year around this time we are seeing and smelling smoke in the air from wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico, and beyond.  Until monsoon season begins and brings some long-awaited relief from the heat we can expect more wildfires to start.  As we wait for monsoons remember to keep up your preparedness or use the smoke in the air as a chance to remind some of your neighbors that now is as good a time as any to prepare for wildfire.

This week’s Wildfire Wednesday includes:

• A profile of a FACNM leader in the Timberlake Ranch community in Northwestern New Mexico.

• Forest and Wildfire Trivia Game, to be played over zoom!

• Fireshed Wildfire Preparedness Pages

Best, Sam

FAC Leader Profile: Mary Jo Wallen, Timberlake, NM

Enthusiasm and personal connection to the outdoors are powerful resources. By sharing these passions we can inspire others to take action towards a more wildfire adapted future.

To learn how FACNM leader Mary Jo Wallen got interested in wildfire mitigation and community organizing, click here.

Fire Adapted Communities New Mexico Leaders act in a very similar way to Fireshed Ambassadors here in Santa Fe. To learn more about that program click here.

Forest and Wildfire Trivia game!

Esmé Cadiente at the Forest Stewards Guild put together a fun social distancing activity that you can play with your friends and peers. Forest and Wildfire trivia can be played over Zoom, google hangouts, or any other platform that allows you to share your screen and computer sound. You must have Spotify to access the music round, and PowerPoint to access the visual round. There are five rounds of eight questions:

1. Forest, Fire and tree trivia

2. Music round – Spotify list

3. Visual round - PowerPoint

4. Fictional forests and fires

5. Visual Round PDF – you can work on this at any time

After each round, the quizmaster will read the answers aloud and participants will report back their scores. The quizmaster will keep an excel doc to track scores. You will need to choose a quizmaster to conduct the trivia and then invite participants to join! This is a great way to connect with neighbors and friends in a time when we can’t connect in the personal way we are used to. You may also learn something about forests and fires!

Use these three files to play:

• Quarantrivia -See The Forest – Word Doc instructions and questions

• Round 3. Quarantrivia -See The Forest Visual Round  - PowerPoint

• Round 5 .Visual Round PDF

Cheers,

Esmé

Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Preparedness Page 

To help guide your actions toward wildfire preparedness, take a look at the Fireshed’s wildfire preparedness page. This page features resources that can help keep your home safe from wildfire, including A home hazard assessment, a wildfire preparation factsheet by NFPA, 10 tips for wildfire risk reduction, and a webinar on how to prepare your Home Ignition Zone for wildfire season. The page also has an entire section devoted to wildfire resistant building materials that can help guide you through home construction or renovation.  

Remember, even small actions like picking up pine needles can make a big difference to prepare your home for wildfire!

To take a look at all the useful resources on the Fireshed’s Prepare page, click here.  

Wildfire Wednesdays #12 - What is a Red Flag Day - Fire Ghosts Book Discussion - Campfire Alternatives

Hello Fireshed Members,

Creating communities that are adapted to living in wildfire-prone landscapes requires capturing the hearts and minds of many New Mexicans. To support this effort, we need useful information to guide our actions and creative materials that compel us to reimagine our role in fire adapted landscapes.

This week’s Wildfire Wednesday features resources to guide our wildfire preparedness actions as well as some creative approaches to help us reimagine what it looks like to live within a fire adapted landscape.

• A lesson in Fireline Factors: What does Red Flag Warning mean?

• An discussion focused around the book Fire Ghosts, that finds glimmers of beauty and enlightenment in the increasing destruction of wildfires in an era of climate change.

• Creative campfire alternatives for camping during fire restrictions

Best,

Gabe

What are Red Flag Warnings? 

By Porfirio Chavarria, City of Santa Fe Wildland Urban Interface Specialist

The National Weather Service defines Red Flag Warnings as:

A term used by fire-weather forecasters to call attention to limited weather conditions of particular importance that may result in extreme burning conditions.

Still scratching your head?  Here’s three bullet points to understand what a Red Flag Warning means. In addition to an area being in a dry spell for at least a week and in high to extreme fire danger, the criteria for the issuance of a Red Flag Warning by the National Weather Service is:

• Sustained wind average 15 mph or greater

• Relative humidity less than or equal to 25 percent and

• Temperature of greater than 75 degrees F.

Red Flag Warnings are issued for specific geographical areas delineated by the National Weather Service.  These areas are referred to as, “forecast zones”.  As with any imaginary line drawn on a map, fires and weather don’t recognize those lines.  But, they do help us make sense of and identify commonalities within those lines to tell a story.  In this case, a story about the potential for increased fire behavior.  Santa Fe happens to be in a tale of three forecast zones; zone 102, 103, and 107.

This can cause confusion.  I tend to err on the side of caution, as mentioned before weather doesn’t recognize these arbitrary boundaries, and therefore if a Red Flag Warning is issued in any one of these zones, I regard Santa Fe as a whole to be in a Red Flag Warning. 

This is all well and good but, “How do I know if there is a Red Flag Warning in my area?”. The easiest and most reliable way to know if there is a Red Flag Warning issued is to sign up for severe weather alerts through Alert Santa Fe. Your local television and radio stations will also relay that information during their news casts.  The local National Weather Service Office website, weather.gov/abq  is an excellent source for a quick visual, and you can click on the links to get the detailed text forecast.

In summary, Red Flag Warnings mean the weather is hot, dry, and windy.  Any fire that starts under those conditions has the potential to spread quickly, and easily overwhelm firefighting resources. 

Get the alerts and create a wildfire action plan. When a Red Flag Warning is issued for your area Get Ready, and be Set, because you may need to Go!

Fire Ghosts, a virtual discussion with the authors Patricia Galagan & Philip Metcalf (d) hosted by Collected Works

Jun 25, 6:00 PM Online Event

Patricia Galagan, one of the authors of Fire Ghosts, a new book chronicling the Las Conchas fire and beauty and enlightenment found in the aftermath, will be in conversation with essayists William deBuys, Craig D. Allen and curator of photography at the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art, Katherine Ware and Ernie Atencio, regional director of National Parks and Conservation association (co-sponsors of the event)

For More information and to join the conversation please visit

https://www.collectedworksbookstore.com/events-1/philip-metcalf-patricia-galagan-fire-ghosts

Campfire Alternatives: Creative Ways to Follow Fire Restrictions and Still Have Fun

You can still have fun camping without a campfire. Although nearly everyone prefers campfires, in a time where there are fire restrictions just about everywhere in New Mexico, it is a great time to get creative and test your outdoor skills by trying some of these creative campfire alternatives.

For extra outdoors points, brainstorm your own fun after-dinner activities that you can do while you are out in the woods with your friends and family.

One of my favorites is going to sleep early. Ha!

Click here to check out a video and blog post by Leave No Trace for some ideas to get you started.

Wildfire Wednesdays #11 - Fire Season Heats Up - Wildfire Risk to Communities - WUFS Summit

Hello Fireshed Members,

Things are heating up in the Southwest. This last week was a big one for wildfire starts across New Mexico, and with that in mind, we have compiled some helpful resources for you to stay informed and active in conversations about your community’s wildfire hazard.

As fire season progresses, it is never too late to do some simple mitigation work around your house and we encourage you all to look back at some of our early posts for some simple ways that you can get involved.

This week’s Wildfire Wednesday includes:

• A 2020 fire season update and nmfireinfo.com and inciweb.nwcg.gov where you can get up-to-date information about active wildfires across the state.

• A webinar recording about how to use the new Wildfire Risk to Communities online map viewer.

• A call for presenters and save-the-date for the Wildland Urban Fire Summit this fall in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Stay safe,

Gabe

Fire Season Heats Up

Uvas Fire- This photo was taken on Jun 7th of the ~1000 acre Uvas fire near Las Cruces. Photo from Inciweb.

We had 6 active wildfires reported over last weekend (6/5-6/7) and a couple early this week. As fire season heats up, you must know where to find accurate and up-to-date information about the wildfires that are occurring across the state.

The best place to find information about active wildfires across New Mexico is  NMFireInfo.com . This website is an interagency effort by the State of New Mexico, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management to keep New Mexican's informed about current significant wildfires, fire restrictions, and helpful links to wildfire prevention information. Click on the +Follow tab in the lower right corner of NMFireInfo.com to sign up to get an e-mail when new NMFireInfo.com posts are added. 

Once an incident transitions from a new start to a larger fire that needs long-term management they are added to Inciweb. This interagency website provides the public with a single source of incident-related information and provides in-depth information such as maps, photos, and an archive of press releases. Click here to visit InciWeb

Wildfire Risk to Communities Webinar

Previously on the blog, we announced the new Wildfire Risk to Communities Viewer created by the US Forest Service and partners. Now you can view a recording of the webinar in which the creators of the website and the fire risk analysis explain how to use the new tool and all of its functions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivWol9_NEMs&feature=youtu.be

Wildfire Risk to Communities is a new free, easy-to-use website with interactive maps, charts, and resources to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk. This website serves as a starting point to help community leaders be able to assess and reduce risk to homes, businesses, and other valued resources. Use this website to start conversations with neighbors, family members, and anyone else in your community about wildfire.

Call for Presenters for 2020 Wildland Urban Fire Summit (WUFS)

This year’s Wildland Urban Fire Summit will center around the theme, “All Lands, All Neighbors for Wildfire Resilience.” As a diverse network that bridges between agency officials, non-governmental organizations, private landowners, and many others, your work as a Fireshed Member is well-suited to this year’s summit theme. We hope you will all take a look at the attached Call for Presentations and consider sharing some of the wildfire adaptation work you are doing in your community.

Presentation ideas need to be submitted by July 31st, 2020 and the Summit is planned for October 22-23, 2020. Please save these dates.

To read the full Call for Presentations, click here.

Wildfire Wednesdays #10 - Ambassador Programs Nationwide - Fireshed Ambassadors - FACNM Leaders - COCO Grant Opportunity

Hello Fireshed Members,

The Fireshed Coalition helps us learn from the experiences of communities across the Coalition landscape and inspires action towards a more wildfire adapted future. In many ways, communities serve as a toolbox full of perspectives, experiences, and creative approaches to new problems. The broader the perspectives and experiences in our Fireshed communities, the more robust our toolbox becomes, and the stronger and more resilient we are.

With this in mind, this week’s Wildfire Wednesday focuses on approaches that we are using to build our community toolbox and bring in new voices to the conversation about wildfire preparedness.

This Blog Contains:

• An article about how ambassador approaches are making progress on wildfire adaptation nationwide

• An introduction to the Santa Fe Fireshed Ambassador Program

• An introduction to the FACNM Leader Program

• The Coalitions and Collaboratives Action, Implementation, and Monitoring Grant Opportunity

Best,

Gabe

An Ambassador by Any Name Doth Broaden Wildfire Resilience

Porfirio Chavarria shares a fire scenario with a neighborhood. A Fireshed Ambassador did all of the work to bring neighbors together to learn about their wildfire risk and what they can do to reduce their risk.

A recent blog post by Rebecca Samulski, of Fire Adapted Colorado, describes the many ways that volunteer neighborhood leaders have been effective at motivating community wildfire mitigation nationwide. Across the country, these volunteer neighborhood leaders go by different names. Here in New Mexico we have a statewide program of FACNM Leaders and a Santa Fe-specific program of Fireshed Ambassadors.

To learn more about how these ambassador approaches are being used across the country, click here to read Rebecca’s recent blog post on FAC Net.

Santa Fe Fireshed Ambassador Program

Fireshed Ambassadors help to bring their community together for informative events like this Society of American Foresters fieldtrip of the Fireshed.

An ambassador approach recognizes that action needs to be motivated from the grassroots scale and tailored to individual communities. The Santa Fe Fireshed Neighborhood Ambassador program means engaging with your neighborhood to help them understand their wildfire risk and encouraging them to take action, and motivating residents to take action to reduce that risk.

We are actively building a network of ambassadors in and around Santa Fe and need more volunteers! If you are concerned about the wildfire risk in your neighborhood and want to do something please join us.

As an Ambassador, you will bring together your community to work collaboratively on wildfire preparedness, mitigate wildfire risk to your homes, and promote and support each other’s efforts and the Fireshed Coalition partners and your fellow ambassadors will be here to support you.

To learn more and join us at our next meeting click below.

https://www.santafefireshed.org/ambassador

Fire Adapted New Mexico’s (FACNM) Leader Program

Working collaboratively will help motivate your community to mitigate wildfire risk to your homes and promote and support each other’s efforts.

Similar to the ambassador program but at a state wide scale, FACNM’s Leader program seeks to connect people motivated in creating fire adapted communities across the state to foster networks and facilitate idea sharing.

If you are concerned about the wildfire risk in your community and want to join others working in their communities please join us.

Coalitions and Collaboratives Action, Implementation, and Monitoring (AIM) Grant

Coalitions and Collaboratives works to foster on-the-ground conservation efforts that protect and restore natural resources and local communities by supporting collaborative conservation organizations, who produce collective impacts through stakeholder driven efforts.

Coalitions and Collaboratives works to foster on-the-ground conservation efforts that protect and restore natural resources and local communities by supporting collaborative conservation organizations, who produce collective impacts through stakeholder driven efforts.

Coalitions and Collaboratives (COCO) is releasing another round of AIM funding. The Pre-Application has been modified from the previous round to be less cumbersome. Attached below is the Request for Proposal, Pre-Application/Concept Paper, and an Example of the Strategic Value question.

Request for Proposal

Examples of Strategic Value Statement

Pre-Application Concept Paper

You can access the Round 5/Summer 2020 grant information on COCO's website: https://co-co.org/get-involved/grants/aim-grant/.

COCO hosted an informational webinar today Wednesday, June 3 at 1:30 MDT. A recording of the webinar will be posted on the website above.