Wildfire Wednesday #87: Reforestation

New Mexico has a long path of wildfire recovery ahead. Those affected can learn more about what post-fire recovery looks like by visiting the After Wildfire (afterwildfirenm.org) website.

Happy Wednesday, Fireshed!

We hope you enjoyed the cool weather over the weekend before things heat up again. With many fires still burning across the state, natural resource managers are starting to think about what comes after the flames. In some areas this may mean post-fire debris flow and flooding mitigation, hillslope stabilization and erosion reduction, or road and trail treatments. For those areas which were burned at high-severity and no longer have live “seed” (producing) trees on the landscape, post-fire treatments may include manual reforestation.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • The need for reforestation

  • Engineering climate-resilient trees

Best wishes,
Rachel

The Need for Post-fire Reforestation

What is it and why should we intervene?

Reforestation is defined as “the action of renewing forest cover (as by natural seeding or by the artificial planting of seeds or young trees)”. In New Mexico and beyond, private, university, state, and federal research centers and companies are working to collect tree seeds, grow seedlings in greenhouses and fields, and plant those baby trees in deforested areas.

Climate change-driven wildfires are trending toward burning bigger, longer, and hotter than in our recorded history. Larger portions of these fires, driven by their self-made weather systems, are also burning at high-severity, killing vast swaths of trees and understory vegetation and scorching the soil and the landscape. Because of the damage and the lack of live seed trees, sometimes for miles, these scarred landscapes are susceptible to ecosystem type shifts, meaning that a place which was once a forest is susceptible to not being able to come back as a forest. This is where land managers who recognize the ecological, social, cultural, and inherent benefits of forests step in.

Where does reforestation start?

Imagine walking through a green healthy forest, tall trees with thick branches reaching for the sun above you, squirrels scampering up the trunks and chirping to one another as they look for pine cones. This is where reforestation begins, in this existing mature forest. Fresh cones with a hearty bank of seeds inside will be collected from these trees and taken back to a nursey where they will be tested for viability, labeled, stored, and eventually germinated and grown into seedlings in greenhouses. Researchers like Owen Burney with New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center conduct targeted collection of seeds to source them from the healthiest trees growing on hot and dry southern slopes, trees which already show the most promise of being able to survive in a hot and dry future. These researchers may subject the baby trees to additional environmental stress in their first year of life, withholding water to encourage the trees to develop drought-tolerance. The seedlings will be tended to and grown in the batches of tens- to hundreds-of-thousands. Read more about this type of engineering.

Trees may be shipped as bare root or containerized “plug” seedlings. Illustration courtesy of Utah State University.

Once the trees are old enough to plant, typically 1-3 years, they will be packaged up in their small containers or dirt plugs and transported to the field site for manual planting by skilled forestry workers carrying a specialized shovel and up to 100 baby trees at a time in their hip bags. Prior to planting, however, the field site needs to be selected and prepared.



Building a Stronger Future Forest

Engineering climate-resilient forests means picking the right place for them to grow.

Shaded drainages and cool northern slopes can serve to provide additional resources and favorable conditions to newly-planted tree seedlings.

Selecting a site for reforestation starts with the question: what is the objective? Foresters think on the scale of hundreds of years, knowing that the trees they hope to plant may not be mature seed-producing forests until long after they’re retired. With this in mind, foresters need to be able to picture the future forest which will meet their objectives and then plant to create that forest. For climate-resiliency, site selection considerations might include finding areas which are going to be shadier, cooler, and wetter than the surrounding landscape. Called microclimates, these areas retain soil moisture and relative humidity which will lessen the amount of environmental stress on the trees, allowing them to grow quickly and become established. Such sites might exist on north-facing slopes and in drainages or other low spots. The process of planting in clumps and focusing reforestation efforts in these favorable microclimates is called nucleation, the goal of which is to create a seed-producing cluster of trees which will then be able to naturally reforest the surrounding area (INSERT PHOTO OF REFUGIA SITE). This approach to artificial reforestation focuses time, effort, and money on areas which are most likely to yield success. As one article in the Scientific American put it, “Southwest forest experts have spent years devising ways to outsmart climate change and give these forests a fighting chance.”

Giving the trees their best chance.

Brush, such as this thicket of Gambel Oak, must be cleared prior to planting to give tree seedlings their best chance.

After the site selection is complete, land managers need to prepare the area for planting. Following a fire which burns at high-severity, the soil is often scorched and scarred with much of the healthy organic material burned away. This soil is susceptible to erosion, degradation, debris-flows, and landslides. Land managers may work to stabilize slopes with directional felling of fire-killed trees and ground cloth, prepare drainages for flooding with weirs, and ensure that the baby trees they are preparing to put in the ground will not be buried, desiccated, or swept away in a debris flow. Small shrubs and bushes such as oak also regenerate quickly in fire scars and can out-compete the baby trees, requiring brush removal prior to planting.

Planting itself is a team effort and a labor of love. Artificial planting of container trees and plugs is done by hand by folks walking out, finding a suitable spot which will offer the tree some shelter and precipitation retention as it grows, and digging a deep hole in which to plant that tree, roots all pointing down, before covering it back up and moving on to the next tree. Crews can plant thousands of trees in a day, reforesting the landscape with 10-inch-tall sprouts of hope. Read more about the work of NMSU and the Forest Stewards Guild planting on the Philmont Scout Ranch here.

The fall 2021 Forest Stewards Youth Corps crews work to plant seedlings in an experimental reforestation project with New Mexico State University.

FSYC crews work to plant trees in a fire scar on Philmont Scout Ranch.

Planting seeds of hope.

Hope is ultimately what artificial reforestation boils down to – the hope that these trees will survive, thrive, be resilient against the many threats of climate change and drought, and grow into the future forests of the Southwest.

Learn more about reforestation in this article about reforesting the Giant Sequoias.

Wildfire Wednesdays #86: People with Disabilities during Wildfires

Hello Fireshed Community,

My thoughts continue to be with those affected by the many wildfires burning across northern New Mexico. Thank you to all the first responders working hard to keep New Mexican communities safe.

Here are some resources related to the wildfires:

In the spirit of continuing our incremental progress towards making out communities better safer during a wildfire, this week’s Wildfire Wednesday newsletter shares information to support safer and more equitable wildfire response for people with disabilities. The following resources were shared from the national Fire Adapted Communities learning network (FAC Net).

Thanks,

Gabe

Functional Needs during Wildfire

For the purposes of this blog post the phrases “people with disabilities” and “people with functional needs” are used interchangeably to refer to a variety of conditions that require special attention during a wildfire.

“Emergency planners must have the ability to reach everyone in their communities to help them prepare for, respond to and recover from all types of emergencies. This includes community members with access and functional needs. All people in the community need to have accurate and trusted information in order to know what to do and when to do it. (from the Functional Needs Planning Toolkit).”

Defining Functional Needs

A Functional Needs Planning Toolkit by the National Response Network defines functional needs as:

“Populations whose members may have additional needs before, during, and after an incident in functional areas, including but not limited to: maintaining independence, communication, transportation ,supervision, and medical care. Individuals in need of additional response assistance may include those who have disabilities; who live in institutionalized settings; who are elderly; who are children; who are from diverse cultures; who have limited English proficiency or are non-English speaking; or who are transportation disadvantaged.”

In looking at and assessing risk in emergencies, the individuals most impacted by an emergency have functional needs in the following areas:

  • Communications—relates to the individual’s ability to receive critical warnings and other emergency information, communicate effectively with emergency response personnel, and understand information being communicated so they can act to help themselves. Individuals may require auxiliary aids and services and may need to have information given to them in alternate formats.

  • Maintaining health—many will require continued access to specialized medical equipment, medications, supplies or personal assistance to maintain their health and prevent the decline of medical conditions if they are removed from their daily environments due to a disaster.

  • Independence—relates to support that people may need to remain independent and to take care of themselves like durable medical equipment, communication devices, service animals, and accessible facilities.

  • Safety, Support services and Supervision—some individuals require the support of people (personal care assistants, family, or friends) to cope with the challenges of emergencies; some may lack the cognitive ability to assess emergency situations and react appropriately without support and/or supervision.

  • Transportation—some individuals cannot drive, some need specialized vehicles for transport, and some do not have their own vehicles and rely solely on public transit.

These functional needs have definite impacts on how people will respond in an emergency. Whole community emergency planning committees need to include people with access and functional needs and representatives from organizations providing services for people with disabilities to truly plan for everyone in the community.

Tools for Working with Functional Needs

This emergency communications board can be used to support communication with individuals that are non-verbal or that do not speak English (see below)

There are many different considerations when working with the types of functional needs identified in the section above. The Functional Needs Planning Toolkit provides information needed to incorporate disabilities into our planning for:

  • Notifications and warnings

  • Evacuation

  • Emergency transportation

  • Sheltering

  • Effective communications

To support the continued learning about how to work with functional needs, the national Fire Adapted Communities learning network compiled the following resources:

With smoke in the air, a productive yet hazy Fireshed Peer Learning Exchange

Happy Friday, GSFFC! This blog was guest authored by Ch’aska Huayhuaca and Mike Caggiano of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI) and originally published on the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative (NoCo Fireshed) webpage. Follow the links to learn more about CFRI and NoCo Fireshed.

A group of a dozen people wearing hardhats sit under a canopy of red-needled pine in a burn scar

Attendees of the Learning Exchange sit under the reddened pine canopy of the Medio Fire burn scar, listening to representatives from Pueblo of Tesuque speak about their involvement in the collaborative Pacheco Canyon Treatments.

Staff from the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institute (SWERI) recently attended the Medio Fire learning exchange at Pacheco Canyon, north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The event, which coincided with three major wildfires burning in the vicinity, was co-hosted by the Forest Stewards Guild, Pueblo of Tesuque, and Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF), and NM Department of Game and Fish, all of whom are partners of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition (GSFFC). In addition to the cohosts, other GSFFC partners on the trip included our sister SWERI, the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute. The event was funded by the New Mexico Chapter of Fire Adapted Communities (FAC NM).

The tour showcased treatments within the fateful 2019 Pacheco Canyon Forest Resiliency Project. Partners of the GSFFC had collaboratively planned and implemented a 500-acre mechanical treatment and subsequent prescribed burn along a POD boundary. Coincidently, a year later, the 2020 Medio Fire ignited in the adjacent Rio Nambe drainage and grew rapidly, pushed by dry gusty winds over steep and heavily wooded terrain. As it burned southeast toward culturally significant ancestral lands of the Tesuque Pueblo and important recreation assets at the Santa Fe Ski Basin, firefighters were able to utilize the strategically located Pacheco Canyon fuel break and initiate a burn out along the treatments edge, helping to slow and eventually contain the fire. The collaboratively designed and implemented treatments, which were planned and implemented over a period of several years, provided an anchor for firefighters as they focused containment efforts on the southern edge to prevent the fire from burning into the Santa Fe watershed.

Four individuals in hiking boots and jackets pose for the camera in front of an open-canopy pine forest

SWERI staff from the New Mexico Forest & Watershed Restoration Institute and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute: Elliese Wright, Mike Caggiano, Alan Barton, and Ch’aska Huayhuaca.

This field-based learning exchange focused on the collaborative planning and implementation process that led to multiple treatments in Pacheco Canyon that ultimately facilitated a strategic response during the Medio Fire.  Focusing on this multi-year effort allowed participants and stakeholders to share successes and challenges in cooperatively implementing cross-jurisdictional land management projects. This included leveraging creative funding sources and strategies for engaging with dissenters unsupportive of forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction projects. For Colorado Forest Restoration Institute staff members Mike Caggiano and Ch’aska Huayhuaca, who respectively participate in and coordinate the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative (NCFC), it was an excellent opportunity for cross-Fireshed peer learning. While there are many contextual differences between the two Fireshed collaboratives with regards to their social and ecological landscapes, and the lessons learned may not translate directly, some compelling themes and similarities emerged.

The Importance of Implementation at Scale

Both initiatives have roots in large, destructive, unplanned fires that led stakeholders to recognize the importance of scale; that is, individual stakeholders treating a few hundred acres here and there was not going be effective for changing landscape scale wildfire behavior and damaging outcomes. The scale of action needs to be commensurate with the scale of disturbance; or put simply, big fires require big treatments. Both collaboratives struggle with the dual challenge of not being able to mechanically treat at a sufficient scale, while also often needing to implement mechanical treatments prior to using prescribed fire safely. The collaboratively developed implementation strategy at the heart of the Pacheco Canyon Forest Resiliency Project addressed this problem by creatively planning, funding, and implementing mechanical treatments to facilitate subsequent prescribed fire treatments, which in turn improved their ability to manage wildland fire and reduce its detrimental effects when the Medio Fire came through. This project was the result of years of trust building, capacity development, and interagency cooperation. Repeated, in-person connections and, importantly, time spent in the woods together discussing values and priorities promoted trust among key partners. As one participant said, “an hour in the field is worth 10 hours in a meeting and 20 on Zoom.” A Memorandum of Understanding between the Pueblo of Tesuque and the SFNF was essential for coordinating efforts to train tribal crews and cooperatively thin and burn the area. This interagency cooperation spurred progress and provided work-arounds when one partner faced internal barriers to getting work done quickly, maintaining momentum. Mike Martinez of the Pueblo of Tesuque commented that collaboration for him meant not settling for “no” when stumbling blocks appear; “Collaboration is finding a way forward, saying yes to your partners, and just showing up.” A recently completed categorical exclusion, a five-year plan of work and shovel-ready projects all contributed to this successful project.

“The key for both collaboratives appears to be ensuring that science is inserted into planning and outreach activities appropriately, while staying nimble in the face of increasingly frequent fire, since science can be slow to catch up.”

The Role of Science

Locally-relevant science is central to both Fireshed groups. Both  benefit from access to boundary-spanning organizations and partners with scientific knowledge and expertise to inform priorities (e.g., see the GSFFC’s 2018 Watershed Risk Assessment here), support on-the-ground work, and legitimize partnerships and projects. Ecological and social science provide context and facilitate conversations between stakeholders about diverse priorities, values at risk and the best way to safeguard them (such as clean air and water, cultural resources, wildlife, and recreation). The key for both collaboratives appears to be ensuring that science is inserted into planning and outreach activities appropriately, while staying nimble in the face of increasingly frequent fire, since science can be slow to catch up. Both groups suggested the desire for more data should not slow down action. Science provides information to help interpret what we are seeing with land management and wildland fire but cannot always tell you exactly what needs to be done. The SFNF Fuels Planning Specialist Dennis Carrol pointed to the importance of maintaining frequent dialog between science partners and land managers as a way of learning, negotiating, and striking a balance.

Coordinated Community Engagement

Flyer from the greater santa fe fireshed coalition advertising a seasonal beer release party

The third theme that emerged which was common to both groups was the approach of meeting communities where they are in terms of social understanding, acceptance, support for forest management and the reintroduction of fire on the landscape. Unlike the NCFC, whose Community Engagement & Outreach committee coordinates on shared messaging and coordinated activities between connected partners in individual watersheds, the GSFFC acts as both a platform for coordination and as a community connector. They have tailored their outreach strategy to connect with communities with different levels of social understanding, acceptance, readiness, and support for prescribed fire projects. They do this by identifying community spark plugs and focusing on community-relevant values. For example, they co-led a GSFFC “Roadshow,” a series of after-hours community meetings to talk about Rx fire in different communities. Organizers recalled, “sometimes we packed the house, sometimes very few showed up; sometimes there were protesters, but either way its important just to show up and be there.” An early project was developing a Fireshed beer, and they built on that momentum with a series of “Brewshed” events to encourage engagement and integrate science into community conversations and build knowledge among stakeholders. They also hosted a “Common Ground Town Hall” to engage with dissenters in science-informed conversation.

A group of 15 attendees stand in a circle in the woods on a sunny day with pine tree shadows and blue skies

Groups in attendance included the Pueblo of Tesuque, Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico Department of Fish & Game, Forest Stewards Guild, the Taos Valley Watershed Coalition, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition, and the NM and CO SWERIs.

The NCFC and GSFFC were both identified as two of the priority Firesheds in the USFS 10-year Strategy and are both preparing to ramp up capacity and action. Both are preparing for increased funding, but also the increased attention and scrutiny that will likely come with the national initiative. As the frequency of destructive landscape scale fire accelerates, learning exchanges like this one will be increasingly important for stakeholders to adapt, learn, and develop resilience, both for the landscapes themselves and the collaboratives charged with their protection. Learning exchange participants left with a greater understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to living well with fire. Successful strategies include but are not limited to effective and targeted community outreach, field-based learning, building scientific literacy, embracing difficult conversations, and planning strategically to treat at scale. Large landscapes in particular, with their diverse ecologies, diverse perspectives, and diverse community values, require strong and sustained collaboration and multipronged approaches.

Wildfire Wednesdays #85: NM Wildfires

Hi Fireshed Community,

As I am sure you are aware, Northern New Mexico is experiencing devastating wildfires.

Our hearts go out to all the communities that are evacuated, the residents who have lost their homes, and the fire personnel working so hard to contain these fires.

This is a difficult time and there is a long road of wildfire recovery ahead.

Given all that, we want to share resources:

Stay safe,

Gabe


Webinar Tonight: Community-based Wildfire Risk Reduction

Join us in preparation for National Wildfire Preparedness Day (May 7th) by discussing advances in home wildfire risk assessments! In this 60-minute webinar, Chris Barth and James Meldrum from the Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team will speak about their recent publication on parcel-level risk. Their presentation will focus on the paired rapid assessment/household survey approach that the WiRē team has employed with partners and communities across the West. They will also discuss the effect home hazard assessments have on reducing the risk of property destruction and the importance of community-level risk reduction to address risk-spillovers across neighboring properties. Log on to learn more about reducing home hazard risk at the community level! Register now to attend the webinar via Zoom or tune in on the FACNM Facebook Live page.

REGISTER NOW

The Speakers

Chris Barth, Fire Mitigation Specialist, BLM-Montana/Dakotas Fire & Aviation Management
Chris works with the public, internal and external partners, elected officials, and the media to communicate fire management strategies and disaster response, planning, and fire adaptation concepts. Chris has received several national awards for his work to reduce community wildfire risk. He is a founding member and subject matter expert for the Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team - with research interests in homeowners’ attitudes towards wildfire mitigation and public perception of wildfire risk. He has co-authored papers on homeowners’ attitudes towards wildfire mitigation and public perception of wildfire risk. He has also presented at national and international conferences related to his work in this field.

Chris has worked in fire management for more than 30 years. He is a Public Information Officer (PIO) on a Type 1 incident management. As a PIO, Chris’ communication style is shaped by his operational, professional, and research experiences. 

More on Chris’ research can be found here.

James Meldrum, Research Economist, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
James Meldrum is an applied research economist with the USGS’s Social and Economic Analysis branch in Fort Collins, CO. James is a founding member of the Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team, a long-standing collaboration between wildfire risk mitigation practitioners and social science researchers. Through more than 10 years of this partnership, he has published numerous journal articles on mitigating the risks of wildland fire. In addition to his work with the WiRē Team, James investigates the effects of natural resource decisions on people in numerous contexts, including fuels and fire management, ecosystem restoration, electricity generation, and the management of invasive species.

More on James’ research can be found here.

The Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team brings diverse expertise in economics, sociology, and wildfire risk mitigation to a multiyear research project on homeowner wildfire risk mitigation and community wildfire adaptedness.

Wildfire Wednesdays #84: Fire Season 2022

Happy Wednesday FAC NM community!

With at least 10 active wildfires burning across the state and more than 20,250 wildfire ignitions that have sparked across the country since the start of 2022, we wanted to remind everyone about emergency preparedness while taking some time to discuss the future of wildfires in the Southwest. Both personal and statewide wildfire readiness are an ongoing process, and both may be influenced by our evolving understanding of fire behavior and climate science.

This week’s Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

  • Reviewing steps for personal wildfire preparedness

  • The current state and future of Wildfire in the West

  • Upcoming events and webinars

Best regards,

Rachel

Steps for personal wildfire preparedness

Where to start

Wildfire readiness can be categorized into three stages:

1) Getting your space ready for and resilient against wildfire ahead of time
2) Getting yourself and your family set for safety in the event of a wildfire
3) Getting away from the active wildfire by following the RSG evacuation guide

Cover of New Mexico Ready Set Go guide showing a large plume of smoke rising from a mountainous region with pinyon juniper savannah in the foreground

So where is the best place to start? The Ready, Set, Go! Fire Action Guide empowers residents living in the wildland urban interface with the knowledge they need to be better prepared for responding to a wildfire in their community. Each step of the program addresses wildfire preparedness at each of the stages mentioned above.

Using the Ready, Set, Go! resource, residents can read about actionable steps to protect their homes, learn about the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and how this impacts fire risk, and follow checklists for how to prepare their family ahead of time, get ready to evacuate as the fire approaches, and ensure they leave early. Individuals interested in learning more can find the latest news and initiatives through the national Ready, Set, Go! website.

Ready when wildfire approaches

As we all gear up for a very active wildfire season across the Southwest, you can use Living with Fire’s Evacuation Checklist to mentally refresh on what should be in your to-go bag, how to prepare family, pets, and your vehicle for an evacuation, and learn what to do inside and outside of your home to provide the best chance for structure survival.

Resources for keeping up to date

Air Quality Index schematic showing green for good, yellow for moderate, orange for unhealthy for sensitive groups, red for unhealthy, purple for very unhealthy, and magenta for hazardous air quality

Air Quality: the national AirNow Fire and Smoke Map allows you to view known wildfire incident information, locate satellite-detected fire activity, navigate to real-time air quality reports from various monitoring equipment, and generate reports on the fire activity, air quality, or smoke plumes in any location by providing your geolocation. You can also visit the website or sign up to receive air quality text alerts from the National Weather Service.

Active Wildfires: visit InciWeb’s interactive wildfire map to view wildfire locations and to review incident information; keep up to date with wildfire incident and evacuation information through NM Fire Info.

Automatic Alerts: download the CodeRed Mobile Alert App to receive emergency alert notifications directly to your mobile device whether at home, on the road, or traveling around the country. These mobile push notifications deliver relevant GPS location-based alerts to ensure you receive critical information when you are in CodeRED jurisdiction.
Emergency notifications, including wildfire evacuation notices, are also broadcast over radio and television though the Emergency Alert System. Find your local CPB radio station and be prepared to listen for emergency alerts, even if the power goes out.

Register for emergency alerts

Wildfire in the West: current state and the future

An early start to fire season

Image series from NASA Earth Observatory showing fires east of Santa Fe

Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory: natural color, Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR), and nighttime lights satellite images show two fires in northern NM, 23 April 2022.

“Fire season in New Mexico arrived early and aggressively in 2022, fueled by strong, gusty winds, extremely low humidity, and an exceedingly dry landscape. As of April 19, nearly 99 percent of the state was dealing with some level of drought” according to an April 26 NASA Earth Observatory article. Scientists have recently determined that annual acreage burned by wildfires in the western United States has doubled in the last two decades, an increase they attribute to a climate change-driven intensification of how hot and dry the atmosphere gets. This heating and drying makes “vegetation more susceptible to burning and the atmosphere more conducive to sustaining fire.”

Climate change leads to wildfire uncertainty

Schematic showing stages of wind-driven crown fire

Image courtesy of IFTDSS: how forest crown fire spreads via wind

One aspect of climate change is certain: the uncertainty it will create. Such is the case for wind, a major driver in the unseasonable intensity and spread we have seen in April’s large wildfires across the state. Recent research out of Columbia University has shown that as the climate warms, the westerly winds and other major global air currents may shift trajectory. “The movement of these winds have huge implications for storm systems and precipitation patterns. And while this research does not indicate exactly where it will rain more or less, it confirms that [this shift in trajectory will cause] wind and precipitation patterns [to] change”.

Crown fire burning a dark forest canopy

Image courtesy of USDA Rocky Mountain Research Station

So how else might fire conditions change in the future? According to a 2015 working paper titled Climate Change and Fire in the Southwest, “there are three pathways through which fire activity might be influenced by climate change: changes in fuel condition (fuel moisture), changes in fuel loading, and changes in ignitions.” While it is more challenging to predict the impact climate change will have on how wet or dry the state is, researchers generally agree that the southwest will see less winter snow and more summer rain.

As temperatures increase, heat waves become more common, and water availability for plants and trees becomes less predictable, large wildfires like the ones burning right now will likely become more common and more severe.

Fire behavior 101

Learn more about what influences wildland fire behavior.

Wildfire Trends

Learn more about wildfire trends, causes and risk factors, and effects in the western U.S.

We hope you will join us!

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.