Blog: Wildfires in Northern New Mexico
This is the first in a series of blog posts and statements that HECHO will be publishing in weeks to come as we dive further into conversations around the historic Fires in New Mexico which have posed and continue to pose a serious threat to the wellbeing and livelihood of our communities in the Southwest. Topics that we will explore in this series include climate change impact on fires in the west, federal funding barriers to local and state communities, fire recovery efforts on the ground, impacts of prescribed fire bans, forest lands destruction, post-fire flooding risks and mitigation, and long-term watershed impacts and risks.
By: Max Trujillo, HECHO New Mexico Senior Coordinator & San Miguel County District 3 Commissioner
April 6th, 2022 seemed like a normal spring day In Las Vegas, New Mexico, drier than usual due to the lack of winter snowpack in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and La Niña keeping jet stream moisture north of New Mexico. Nothing the resilient Indo-Hispano culture of Northern New Mexico has not experienced before; the difference is that we have been experiencing these extended periods without measurable moisture more frequently in recent years. In late afternoon of April 6th, we learned that a prescribed burn near Hermit’s Peak, just west of Las Vegas and near the communities of Las Despensas and San Ignacio, had jumped containment lines and had officially become what was classified a wildfire that was out of control with no containment. A Type 2 incident team was sent in to oversee the suppression efforts and as the fire grew and was mostly a wind driven event, it escalated to a Type 1 incident which is the highest priority as the Forest Service rates fire incidents.
Full suppression was the mission of what was now a Type 1 incident. Wind driven flames raced through approximately 10,000 acres (about half the area of Manhattan) in about a week, the area planned for the prescribed burn was about 1,200 acres. Despite high (red flag) wind day after day, the Type 1 incident team managed to wage a successful battle and achieve 91% containment with structure loss limited to a few outbuildings and a mostly beneficial burn.
As evacuees were allowed back into their homes and properties, an air of success blew through the area in the 60 mile an hour wind gusts, again, resilience of strong mountain communities just living through another spring. On Tuesday April 19, 2022, as things were getting wrapped up and normalcy was returning to our communities, we learned of a “new start” in Calf Canyon in the upper Gallinas Canyon area. Crews were dispatched to the new start and by Wednesday it had all but buttoned up when late that afternoon high winds caused that fire to jump the line and was now out of control. The Calf Canyon fire grew to hundreds of acres within 24 hours and was moving freely through the mixed conifer forests loaded with dry ladder fuel for miles in every direction. I attended the public meeting on Thursday, April 21at as I had for many days prior to this meeting. The difference on this day was palpable tension amongst the team I had not seen before. There were no smiles, no lighthearted conversations, and a feeling in the room that can only be described as terror. As the normal agenda format of the meeting was conducted, the fire behavior analyst warned of an historic fire day coming on Friday and he was not wrong.
The fire did not grow in acres, it grew in miles, 13 to be exact, it merged with the Hermit’s Peak fire and became the Calf Canyon Hermit’s Peak Fire. The fire that by May 31, 2022, would burn 315,000 acres, hundreds of homes, destroyed multiple watersheds in 3 counties and threatened two other counties with about 50% containment. On Friday May 27, 2022, it was revealed that the origin of the Calf Canyon fire was a “sleeper/dormant source”. The Forest Service was conducting pile burns in January and one of these piles harbored embers beneath the surface for nearly three months until they were brought to life during these high wind days in April.
A disaster declaration was enacted by the Biden administration which brought many resources to the area and to those affected by the fire. FEMA, Red Cross, and the Department of Homeland Security have been deployed and those affected by the fire are being helped by these agencies. The State of New Mexico has also come in with resources to help the affected people and counties. As many resources are promised, the race against time has begun as few affected have seen or received enough money to either start rebuilding or even give rebuilding any thought. With fire comes floods and with the damage to our watersheds, hydrologic damage is eminent. With our monsoon rains starting in late June/early July, the race to build structure to prevent debris flow is putting added pressure on the whole situation. The fire is a disaster, but what is coming could prove to be equally or more devastating.
How do communities who are already financially exhausted prepare for impending disaster?
The federal government, while meaning well, may be disconnected from the reality of what is to come. The pace at which government moves is not conducive to what is now an emergency to preemptively mitigate the coming hydrological damage consisting of debris flows and watershed contamination that could be felt for years and generations to come. Without the assistance of the federal government, how do we battle what comes with displaced communities whose homes, ranches, pastures, recreation areas, sources of income are lost? The questions on people’s minds, the uncertainty, the prospect of losing a city, two counties, and countless individual communities seem insurmountable at times.
Reflecting on the Cerro Grande Fire in May of 2000 and how the federal government came in and paid out about $1 billion dollars to compensate those who lost homes in the richest county in New Mexico, we cannot help but wonder if the federal government will do the same for two of the poorest counties in the state. Nobody asked for this disaster and despite the disparity in economic conditions between those affected by the Cerro Grande Fire of 2000 and those affected by the Hermit’s Peak, Calf Canyon Fire of 2022, the people affected by the Hermit’s Peak, Calf Canyon Fire are no less deserving of full compensation for their losses. If there is true focus on equity in recovery efforts, then there is hope for the people of San Miguel and Mora Counties. If adequate recovery aid is not brought to those affected by this horrible disaster, then this disaster will turn into a conversation on equity and justice.
The Biden Administration is being put to the test with this disaster. The people of Northern New Mexico have been on this land for twice as many years as the United States has been a country, they have managed and cared for their place on the land for 500 years and defeat is not an option for them.