Happy Wednesday, FAC Community!
My name is Megan Rangel-Lynch and I’m excited to introduce myself as the new FACNM Learning Network Coordinator and a new contributor to the Wildfire Wednesdays newsletter series. As I step into this role, I’m eager to deepen my understanding of the Network’s work and vision, connect with many of you who are leading fire readiness efforts across the state, and share what I know while learning from your experiences. I look forward to working together to continue building a culture of fire adaptation.
In my previous role as Program Assistant Manager for Community Resilience with the Arizona Wildfire Initiative (AZWI), I was continually inspired by the many ways leadership manifests in fire adaptation work. Whether it was the local coffee shop owner placing wildfire information flyers next to his credit card machine, an HOA leader sharing her lessons learned from 16 years of experience running a Firewise program, or a southwest region researcher working to expand the concept of fire adaptation beyond the parcel level— I was inspired by how every contribution, big or small, is vital to building communities more resilient to wildfire. Leadership and mentorship emerge in many forms, and I am motivated by the opportunity to contribute to this network of collaboration, where shared knowledge and collective action can help us all learn to better live with wildfire.
As I settle into my new role, I would like to share some resources from across the state line that I developed with community partners while working for AZWI. These tools, along with others that can support your wildfire preparedness journey, remind us that building fire resilience doesn’t always require grand initiatives. Small, consistent efforts—whether it’s a conversation with a neighbor, an educational event at a local school, or maintaining your own property's fire-safe defensible space—contribute to a broader culture of preparedness.
I hope that, together, we can celebrate big successes in our communities while also supporting each other through shared resources, consistent engagement, and ongoing collaboration. I look forward to learning from and working alongside all of you!
This Wildfire Wednesday features:
Resources from Across State Lines: Advancing Community Resilience
Wildfire preparedness actions you can take in just 10 minutes
All the best,
Megan
Advancing Community Resilience in Arizona: Insights from the Arizona Wildfire Initiative
This blog post, originally featured on FAC Net, highlights the work of the community resilience team of the Arizona Wildfire Initiative.
Between the spring and fall of 2024, AZWI staff met with over 100 Arizona residents, leaders, and officials across several key communities which were identified by a board of state-level experts as having high fire risk. Through these conversations, the team identified strengths, gaps, opportunities, and areas needing attention — at both the community and state level. A blog post from the national Fire Adapted Learning Network (FAC Net) details the social science interviewing and analysis process of AZWI staff and shares overarching lessons and recommendations that emerged during the consultation process. Many of these lessons are applicable to communities in New Mexico.
A few key recommendations that emerged from AZWI’s consultation process include:
Be strategic when prioritizing wildfire risk reduction efforts - Many communities have access to cost-share grants for retrofitting or vegetation removal on a first come, first-served basis. While easier to administer and seemingly fair, this approach inadvertently may hinder work on high-risk properties where fuels management may produce a higher net benefit for the broader community (e.g. properties along evacuation routes or adjacent to high-risk areas). Solutions could include tiered cost-share structures based on household income or prioritization of properties where treatment would have the greatest impact on community safety.
Include communities lacking formal, structured leadership in funding and partnership opportunities - Federal, state, and local entities and their collaborators should explore how to make partnership and funding opportunities more accessible for communities early along in their adaptation journey, or those without Homeowners’ Associations or other defined leadership structures. Many formal programs and collaborations to support community wildfire adaptation are easiest to implement in pre-structured spaces, leaving communities with a more horizontal structure behind. This may indicate the need for funds that support community meetings, relationship building, and small scale planning as a precursor to larger awards, or the need to include mechanisms that support more fragmented communities, such as placement of grant coordinators within existing locally trusted entities.
Use unknowns about wildfire as catalysts for collaboration - “Unknowns” about wildfire in different ecosystems can serve as collaborative catalysts for place based discussions about wildfire resilience. For instance, uncertainty around fuels management in Sonoran ecosystems where little guidance exists can spark productive discussions between communities and experts.
Read the full blog and explore other recommendations that emerged: https://fireadaptednetwork.org/advancing-community-resilience-in-arizona/
Guide to Organizing a Community Chipper Day
A so-called “chipper day” typically involves residents removing flammable vegetation from around their homes, especially within the 5-foot zone (Zone 0), and getting the resulting material (called slash) chipped and hauled offsite to reduce the risk of wildfire to their home and community. Coordinating with residents and local groups or organizations to make this kind of vegetation removal happen collaboratively can help maximize the impact of community wildfire safety-enhancing work (read about a community chipper day in La Barbaria Canyon that kickstarted community defensible space for the Neighborhood Association).
This four-page guide, How to Organize a Community Chipper Day, provides the essential information a community leader would need to organize a successful chipper day, including various organizational structures to ensure the event meets the unique needs of any given community.
Page 1 of 4 of the guide
Wildfire Preparedness Actions You Can Take in Just 10 Minutes
With widespread drought and red flag warnings occurring as early as February, wildfire season is increasingly becoming a year-round concern. This can make the prospect of wildfire preparedness, often associated with lengthy and labor-intensive checklists, feel overwhelming. To help individuals take action at their own pace, FAC Net developed a resource that organizes wildfire preparedness tasks by time commitment.
While home hardening remains a crucial aspect of wildfire preparedness, making homes and businesses more resistant to embers and fire, this resource’s focus expands beyond an individual’s property. It offers a broad range of meaningful projects—some of which take as little as 10 minutes—empowering individuals to engage in ongoing preparedness efforts that fit their capacity and schedules.
The Fire Ecology Learning Lab - Agency and Informal Educator Resource
The Fire Ecology Learning Lab, originally created as a middle school lesson series for students in New Mexico and Arizona to explore the fire ecology of the region, has since expanded to offer hands-on, interactive lessons for students from kindergarten through high school. Educators, including agency professionals, environmental educators, and informal instructors, can easily bring these engaging lessons into classrooms or the field using ready-to-use kits.
All the materials needed for a hands-on, engaging classroom visit—covering topics such as wildfire management, fire behavior, fire ecology, or fuels—can be requested as a rentable as a kit. Kits are currently being hosted by partner organizations across the Southwest including New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico State University, and USFS Region 3 Office.
Lessons are available in both Spanish and English and are tailored to different grade levels. Modules were all designed based on science standards.
For a full overview of the kit contents, lesson plans, or to request a kit, visit: https://www.swfireconsortium.org/agency-and-informal-educators/
Additional Resource
In an effort to build public literacy of wildfire resilience solutions, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) launched a strategic communications campaign called Fix the Forest. With content vetted by wildfire practitioners and researchers, the campaign is grounded in science, traditional ecological knowledge, and the experience of on-the-ground managers.
The EDF's ambition it to provide clear yet in-depth explanations of key wildfire resilience strategies (such as forest thinning, beneficial fire, community wildfire protection, and advanced firefighting techniques) to address the ongoing wildfire crisis. Resources on the webpage are accompanied by a glossary that provides definitions of essential terms related to forest and fire management, ensuring accessibility for all audiences.
This campaign is not associated with the Fix Our Forests Act, a congressional bill introduced in the House of Representatives in January 2025. That legislation focuses on federal forest management requirements, including requirements concerning reducing wildfire threats, expediting the review of certain forest management projects, and implementing forest management projects and other activities.
Upcoming Events
Learning to Live with Fire – Lunch and Learn Webinar Series
Join Doug Cram, Forest and Fire Specialist at the New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Office, for a series of informative one-hour webinars designed to help New Mexico residents prepare for wildfire season. Each session includes a Q&A segment, offering guidance on wildfire preparedness, evacuation strategies, and practical steps to protect your home, property, and community.
The 2025 Lunch & Learn webinar series is tailored for homeowners and residents who want to enhance their wildfire awareness, improve their emergency readiness, and adopt proactive measures for living safely in a fire-prone environment—which includes all of New Mexico.
Sessions begin at noon and will be recorded.
2025 Webinar Schedule
March 27th - Wildfire! You have 5 minutes to evacuate. What should you do?
April 3rd - Steps to safeguard your home, yard, and neighborhood against wildfire.
April 10th - Farm and ranch wildfire considerations.
The Bear Truth: Black Bear Resource Selection and Response to Wildfire and Forest Restoration Treatments | Apr 9, 2025 at 11:00 AM Mountain
An era of fire suppression, compounded by selective harvesting of large diameter trees and overgrazing, has altered historical fire regimes in the western United States. These fire and land management practices have left many western forests with increased fuel loads and high densities of small diameter trees. This increased tree density has been associated with decreased biodiversity, and reduced habitat quality for some species.
Managers are attempting to mitigate altered fire regimes using restoration thinning and prescribed burns to reduce fuel loads and restore historical forest structure and fire regimes. As mitigation treatments become more common, there is a need to understand the effects of large-scale forest manipulation on wildlife and habitat. Using GPS locations spanning 2012-2022 within the Jemez Mountains, research sought to assess multi-scale seasonal resource selection functions to determine how black bears respond to wildfires and forest restoration treatments, including the effect of fire severity, time since the disturbance, and other environmental and topographic variables relevant to black bears.
Presented by Matt Keeling from New Mexico State University, this presentation will provide valuable insights for managers seeking to reduce wildfire risk while maintaining or enhancing habitat for black bears or sympatric species in fire prone landscapes by explaining spatio-temporal responses of black bears to forest restoration treatments and wildfires.
Pre- and Post-Fire Impacts of Beaver Dams and Beaver Dam Analogs | Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 10AM Mountain
Given the increasing severity of wildfires and their associated impacts across the country, there is significant attention on the tools that are available to address these challenges. Recent research highlights that conservation and restoration of freshwater ecosystems may play an important, yet overlooked, role in wildfire management.
Dr. Emily Fairfax, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Funk, Director of Water Resources and Senior Counsel at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, will touch on the role of beaver dams and their analogs in creating wetlands, the nexus between freshwater systems and fire, and how this information can be utilized to enact policy change to conserve these ecotypes.