Welcome to another Wildfire Wednesday, FACNM readers.
Figuring out how to be ready for fire can feel pretty daunting. Whether it is your 1st, 10th, or 100th step toward personal and community wildfire preparedness, there are many ways to get involved. From education and learning about fire science, to fuels reduction and home hardening, to incorporating the newest technology to reduce to risk of catastrophic fire, today’s Wildfire Wednesday discusses recent wildfire adaptation efforts and successes across the state.
Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:
Wildfire Adaptation in New Mexico
Be well and stay cool,
Rachel
FACNM Microgrant Successes
In spring of 2023, FACNM began offering seed funding to FACNM Leaders and Members through its Microgrant Program. Individuals or Organizations can apply for up to $2,000 to buoy their community fire preparedness efforts - convening educational gatherings, enabling on-the-ground risk mitigation work, developing grant proposals to secure long-term funding, and more. Since then, the Learning Network has opened up applications for grant assistance twice annually, providing Network members with technical assistance and over $30,000 in wildfire preparedness support.
The latest round of microgrants helped five community leaders host neighborhood chipper days and coordinate community education events. Read all about their successes, and the impact of this Network support, below.
Hazardous fuels removal: defensible space thinning and slash chipping in Timberlake Ranch
The remote community of Timberlake Ranch, tucked away in the south Zuni Mountains, is built at the interface between steep mesas, rocky pinyon-juniper shrubland, and decadent ponderosa pine. While it is a prime location for fire risk reduction and fuels mitigation, it can be challenging and expensive to secure contractors to do this type of work because of the distance from any major metropolitan area. The Landowners Association community has hosted chipper days in the past, and this year landowner and FACNM Leader Mike Rebb took the initiative to organize one such event - with the caveat that he would rent the equipment and do the work himself. He and a team of volunteers worked for months in advance to get the word out, work with landowners to do defensible space thinning around their homes and move the slash to the edges of their properties, and select 12 landowners on a first-come first-served basis for participation.
One community member who partook in the chipper day wrote in appreciation that “fire mitigation is a top priority for us on our properties in Timberlake. Under leadership of [FACNM Leader] Mike Rebb and his team, they spent 45 minutes on our property and chipped approximately 10-12 piles of slash that were treetops, trimmings, and small trees taking up space, becoming possible fuel to a forest fire. His team completely chipped all piles and we spread the chips to mitigate any possibility of forest fire in the future… thank you for your support of a healthy forest and fire prevention through mitigation.”
………………..
Community education and hazardous fuels removal: neighborhood meetings, forest thinning, slash hauling, and chipping in Tesuque Valley
The Tesuque Community FireWise project, coordinated by FACNM Leader and FireWise Coordinator Rachel White, has been organizing education and fire risk reduction days for the community for several years. This one built on prior successes with an April community meeting at Tesuque Elementary School followed by an early-May free community chipper day.
The community meeting featured eight presenters and was designed to allow attendees to learn more about Tesuque’s community wildfire risk, preventative measures that can be taken, insurance options, and other fire-related issues. Approximately forty community members were in attendance, asking questions of the panel, receiving informational handouts, and learning about the upcoming opportunity to participate in the community chipper day.
The chipper day was held in the Tesuque Fire Department’s parking lot and was staffed by FireWise volunteers and contractor Chris’ Tree Service. Over a 4-hour period, 28 residents brought 46 loads of slash from their yards to be chipped, nearly doubling the 2024 participation. A volunteer also picked up debris from several households that were unable to transport their loads to the event. Participants expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to have their woody debris easily processed and requested that the event be repeated next year.
………………..
Community education and outreach: Wildfire Preparedness Day in Angel Fire
The newly established Colfax County NM Firewise Communities (CCFC), led by FACNM Leader Kim Wright, hosted a Wildfire Preparedness Day outside of the Lowe’s Market in Angel Fire with educational materials, resources for kids, and fire preparedness-related raffle giveaways on May 3. The event was supported by the Colfax County Volunteer Fire Department, Angel Fire Fire Department (AFFD), US Forest Service, NM Forestry Division, Cimarron Watershed Alliance, Angel Fire Pizza Stop, and Forest Stewards Guild.
During the day, attendees asked questions and took wildfire mitigation material. Some attendees spoke with Fire Chief Craig Sime about the Colfax Collaborative Wildland Urban Interface (CCWUI) Project and its impact reducing wildfire risk for the community. They also spoke with AFFD Ambassador Coordinator Lindsey Reed about Angel Fire’s Defensible Space Ordinance and the free professional home hazard assessments available to area residents. Firefighters and Engines were there along with Smokey Bear. A representative from Lakeview Pines, located west of Eagle Nest Lake, was inspired and said their community would like to organize a Firewise group. The Wildfire Community Preparedness Day was determined to be a success!
………………..
Community education and engagement: Wildfire Preparedness Day in Santa Fe
Villages of Santa Fe, the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition, Fire Adapted NM, Santa Fe Fire, Forestry Division, and the US Forest Service teamed up to host the third annual Ready! Set! Go! workshop for Santa Fe area residents on May 3 in celebration of Wildfire Preparedness Day. These events were started with the intent of providing engaging educational opportunities for residents and visitors to learn about fire safety, prevention, and adaptation. This year, the event grew to include a panel of experts talking about fire insurance in New Mexico, among other interesting presentations. Organizations also set up tables with handouts and relevant information and attendees were able to visualize fire spread under different conditions using a Fire SimTable. The workshop was hosted at the Santa Fe Public Library and the Teen Center and supported by volunteers with drinks provided by Coca Cola.
As organizer Ann Church put it, “this year's event was a blast, and our community engagement just keeps leveling up. Every year, we fine-tune, we innovate, and we make an even bigger impact. Can’t wait to see what we cook up next!”
………………..
Neighborhood preparedness: annual fire safety meeting in Los Cerros Colorados
On March 2nd, 45 neighbors in the Los Cerros Colorados HOA gathered at the home of a local resident for the community’s annual fire safety meeting. As coordinator and FACNM Member Rod Gould put it, "this was a good turnout given we were up against the Academy Awards.” The meeting featured speakers from the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition and City of Santa Fe Fire Department discussing wildfire risk, what drives this risk, fire prevention and safety actions available to community members, defensible space and evacuation, and the free professional home hazard assessments offered by the Forest Stewards Guild as part of a Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) for the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed.
The audience was highly receptive to all the information provided and stuck around to discuss it even after the meeting adjourned. Residents had the opportunity to sign up for home hazard assessments during the meeting and were informed of an upcoming opportunity to participate in a community slash disposal day, also supported the CWDG funds. The HOA lauded the success of both the community meeting and the disposal event and hope to continue both annually into the future.
New! AlertWest Fire Detection
When the Medio Fire first ignited in 2020, firefighting resources were having trouble identifying the location of the fire - something that could potentially delay their response time - because of the rough terrain obstructing their view into the Rio en Medio drainage. This experience, and others like it, highlighted the need for new and innovative tools to assist with wildfire detection.
Getting ready to install the camera on the towers already at the top of Tesuque Peak.
On Friday, July 18, a special 24/7 camera came online atop Tesuque Peak, making the southwestern corner of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains the first place in New Mexico to adopt new wildfire and smoke detection technology. The project was catalyzed by Jonathan Frenzen and Sandy Hurlocker of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition’s communications committee and is being initially funded and supported by the Santa Fe Community Foundation, Santa Fe/Pojoaque SWCD, Forest Stewards Guild, and Jonathan Frenzen.
The control panel for the camera is seen on the back of a pickup truck at Tesuque Peak, ready to be installed.
“The pan-tilt-zoom camera from AlertWest, which [has a proven record of management services and wildfire detection and] manages a network of such cameras, has powerful magnification and can see in infrared. It will be scanning the area for plumes of smoke. It can see 25 miles in the daylight and 50 miles at night. Its live feed will be transmitted to a monitoring center in California, where artificial intelligence will detect signs of wildfire, and human technicians will verify the risk and alert emergency response.” (Santa Fe New Mexican - June 6 full article) These types of cameras are widely used elsewhere in the West and have been shown to be effective and successful.
The camera has a Command and Control function which will give key wildland fire management partners (Santa Fe National Forest, NM Forestry Division, City of Santa Fe Fire, Santa Fe County Fire, and Pueblo of Tesuque) the ability to pan the camera’s view around 360° and zoom in up to 40x magnification, making them better able to locate potential wildfire starts. It provides another tool for wildfire management, fire resources support, and community protection. It also adds another layer of protection for the critically important Santa Fe Watershed by providing wildfire detection capabilities in the upper watershed, an area not easily visible from town. The camera will provide fire surveillance for other important areas such as the Rio en Medio and Tesuque drainages and the Pecos wilderness. And the icing on the cake? The public can view this tool on AlertWest.
The public view of the camera, Tesuque Peak 1, on the AlertWest website.
Jonathan Frenzen's experience in academia and business was key to bringing in this technology as he advocated for improved wildfire detection capabilities and public access to information. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our times, driving increased fire behavior and frequency and the threats that come with that. As we face this challenge, we need to use the tools available to us. As Jonathan says, “this is a tool that can help us manage both the health of our forests and protect the safety of our communities.”