Wildfire Wednesdays #129: Innovations in Biomass Utilization

Hello Wildfire Wednesday readers,

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today, we’re going to get extra romantic and talk about a critical and evolving aspect of hazardous fuels reduction—disposal of slash and leftover small diameter woody material. This has traditionally been viewed as a waste product due to its minimal value in commercial markets and is usually disposed of by piling and burning or scattering or chipping and leaving onsite to decompose. Alternative methods to utilize these materials are gaining momentum as new products are developed and marketed, presenting exciting opportunities for increased revenue for landowners, job creation, and benefits to the environment, our forested landscapes, and the soil. There are opportunities to partake at both the landscape and individual scale, with accessible technologies such as backyard biochar production. The alternatives outlined below can help reshape the ways we approach slash disposal as communities and organic yard waste disposal as residents.

This Wildfire Wednesday features:

Read on!
-Dayl

What is Biomass Utilization?

Biomass utilization refers to the conversion of recently harvested organic materials into energy or various bio-based products. Biomass can include a wide range of materials such as wood, crop residues, and agricultural by-products. The goal of biomass utilization is to create value-added products for wide-ranging applications or harness the energy stored in these organic materials.

There are many ways in which biomass can be utilized:

  1. Bioenergy production: Biomass can be used to generate heat, electricity, or biofuels. Common processes for bioenergy production include combustion, gasification, and fermentation.

  2. Bioproducts: Biomass can be processed to extract valuable bioproducts such as building materials and biofuels. Some unique examples of bioproducts include Woodstraw for erosion control and Wood Wool Cement board for construction.

  3. Biochar production: Biomass pyrolysis can produce biochar, a carbon-rich material that can be applied to soil to improve fertility, carbon sequestration, and overall soil health. Mobile technologies such as the air curtain burner may allow for biochar production directly within a forest treatment worksite (as opposed to hauling biomass offsite for biochar production).

  4. Anaerobic digestion: Organic waste and biomass can undergo anaerobic digestion, a biological process that produces biogas (methane and carbon dioxide) as a renewable energy source and also generates digestate, a nutrient-rich fertilizer.

  5. Co-firing: Biomass can be co-fired with coal in power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition towards cleaner energy sources.

These technologies present a new opportunity to close the loop in hazardous fuels reduction and augment traditional methods such as pile burning, which can impact air quality with emissions, and onsite decomposition, which fails to fully reduce fire risk by leaving the hazardous fuels in place. Leveraging woody biomass sourced from public lands has the potential to not only reduce carbon dioxide emissions but also to grow rural economies. The biomass that is created through hazardous fuel treatments can be extracted and repurposed for bioenergy and bioproducts, offering a sustainable and multifaceted solution.

It’s not as simple as just implementing these new strategies, however. The forest products industry faces significant challenges in implementing large-scale forest restoration projects due to constraints including limited capacity, regulatory barriers, disruptions in supply chains, workforce shortages, logistics hurdles, and a lack of viable markets. One response to these barriers is the Wood Innovations Grant established by the Forest Service to facilitate the expansion of wood and biomass utilization.

Examples of Biomass Utilization in Action

SWERI Wood Utilization Team
With the support of a Wood Innovations Grant, the Wood Innovations and Utilization Team at the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes (SWERI) was born. The objective of the project is to establish a center of expertise and provide crucial support for the development of forest-based enterprises. These interconnected operations will generate markets that support the restoration of forests and grasslands in the Southwest, create jobs and expand rural economies, and align with watershed protection and fire prevention. Read more in this article from Northern Arizona University.

Placer County, California - Forest Biomass Removal on National Forest Lands
Placer County is exploring and prioritizing projects that collect, process, transport, and utilize woody forest biomass wastes for renewable energy as an alternative to pile burning or mastication. In a public-private partnership demonstration project (report (PDF)/video), over 6,000 tons of slash from fuel hazard reduction treatments in the Tahoe National Forest were utilized for energy. In addition, the state of California Forest Biomass to Carbon-Negative Biofuels Pilot Program funded six projects that demonstrate technologies and plans for the creation of energy from local forest biomass.

What is Biochar?

Biochar is a type of charcoal that is created through the pyrolysis process, which involves burning organic material derived from agriculture, forestry, or - on a smaller scale - yard waste. This process occurs in a container with very low levels of oxygen, resulting in minimal smoke and volatiles emissions. You may have already made biochar on your own - perhaps when extinguishing a campfire or a woodstove at the end of a night by dousing it with water or smothering it with dirt - without even knowing it! The natural charcoal that results is the same material as biochar.

Biochar is very useful as a soil amendment, enhancing water and nutrient retention and attracting beneficial microbes via its incredible porosity and negative surface charge. Beyond its soil-enhancing properties, biochar serves as an effective method for sequestering carbon in the soil and preventing it from entering the atmosphere. Typically, the decomposition of organic matter emits greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. However, through pyrolysis, the carbon in organic matter is locked into a decay-resistant form, effectively sequestering it indefinitely.

How to make biochar in your backyard

Making biochar in your backyard is a relatively simple process that can be accomplished with basic materials. Here's a step-by-step guide.

(You can also find a cornucopia of resources and instructional videos by doing a quick online search. Each method is going to vary slightly from the next, showing that there are many “correct” ways of making biochar!)

What you’ll need:

  • Metal barrel or in-ground open pit: You'll need a metal container with air holes punched in the bottom or a cone-shaped pit dug into the ground. The air holes in the bottom of your metal barrel will pull air up from the narrow point in the bottom of the hole, removing oxygen from the feedstock. The conical shape of the pit will do the same (it should be about as deep as it is wide). The Quivira Coalition offers biochar kiln loans to support people doing their own land stewardship!

  • Starting material: Dry wood, paper, or other fine woody debris can be used to start the combustion process. Dry tumbleweeds are an effective and satisfying starter. These materials will be layered on top of the pile that you are burning.

  • Biomass feedstock: Collect woody biomass, such as branches, twigs, or pruned tree limbs to build your pile, and keep some finer materials aside to continually feed the fire once pyrolysis has begun.

  • Safety gear: Protect yourself by wearing gloves, pants, and long sleeves and have plenty of water onsite in case anything gets out of hand.

Steps to make backyard biochar:

  1. Gather and load biomass:

    • Fill the barrel or fire pit with the dry woody material, making sure not to overfill it. Put fine fuels (kindling) on top of the pile in a dense, thick layer.

    • Four pounds of biomass can make close to one pound of biochar, depending on materials and the efficiency of the burn.

  2. Ignition:

    • Using your preferred lighting technique, start burning the pile by igniting the kindling layer on top of your feedstock. A propane torch is the easiest way to evenly light the kindling layer.

    • As the kindling is consumed, continue to add more kindling on top. This will keep air moving upwards and encourage the feedstock layer below to catch fire.

  3. Pyrolysis process:

    • As the biomass undergoes pyrolysis, it will release gases and leave behind biochar.

    • Keep adding more kindling materials on top as it burns down. The purpose of this is to keep the fire on top of the feedstock to burn away the smoke as it comes off.

    • The flame will be mostly yellow as it consumes gases, and little to no smoke will be produced.

  4. Monitoring:

    • Keep an eye on the process to ensure that the biochar doesn't turn into ash due to excessive oxygen. Once you see ash starting to form, start layering more biomass on top in an even layer to keep oxygen levels low.

    • If you see lots of smoke forming, you may be adding too much material too fast.

  5. Quenching:

    • When all of your feedstock has turned into a pile of red-hot coals, it is time to quench the fire!

    • Using a hose, thoroughly douse the coal bed. Rake the wet coals to find hot spots and re-wet as needed until it’s cold.

    • You can also quench the fire by piling a layer of soil on top. This will stop the flow of oxygen and prevent your feedstock from turning to ash.

  6. Collecting biochar:

    • After a day or two of cooling and drying out, carefully collect the biochar. The biochar should be brittle and crumble easily in your hands.

  7. Crushing or grinding (optional):

    • If desired, crush or grind the biochar to achieve a more uniform particle size. This can enhance its effectiveness when incorporated into the soil.

  8. Incorporating into soil/compost:

    • Incorporating biochar into a compost pile first can be beneficial, as this will “charge” the micropores of the biochar with nutrients.

    • Incorporate the biochar compost mix into your garden soil at a recommended ratio of around 5-10%.

*Remember to conduct biochar production in a well-ventilated outdoor area, away from flammable materials, and be cautious about fire safety! Additionally, be aware of local burning and air quality regulations.*

Additional Resources, Events, and Funding

Webinars

Hosted by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and co-hosted by the Arizona Wildfire Initiative.
Following a severe wildfire, recovery efforts can benefit from using “Engineering With Nature” principles to utilize existing materials on the landscape for slope stabilization, erosion control, and stream restoration. Join presenter Chris Haring of the USACE-Engineering Research and Development Center to learn about the successes and lessons learned with these techniques in Santa Clara Canyon, NM after the destructive Las Conchas Fire.

Hosted by the Forest Stewards Guild.
This special Lunch and Learn webinar will cover the 2023 Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report. Presenter Neil Chapman, Wildland Fire Captain with the Flagstaff Fire Department and Commission member, will discuss the 2021 creation of the 50-member Commission, its mission to recommend improvements to how federal agencies manage wildfire across the landscape, and the recommendation creation process, outcomes, and next steps following publication of the Commission's report.

Learn more and read the report with its 148 final recommendations.

In-Person Learning Exchange

Saturday, February 24 from 10am - 2pm: Bernalillo County Pile Burn Workshop

This Bernalillo County workshop for forest and fire practitioners and interested landowners will cover a variety of topics related to pile burning, such as writing prescriptions, pile construction, PPE, containment, and permitting. The workshop will include both classroom and field components and will introduce attendees to the State's Certified Burn Manager Program. Lunch will be provided to participants and registration is required.

Agenda:
10:00am – Classroom: State burner program, prescriptions, permitting
12:00pm – Field: Pile construction, containment, PPE
2:00pm – Wrap up

Funding Opportunities

FACNM Microgrant Opportunity to fund your community fire preparedness event: FACNM Leaders and Members are eligible to apply for grants awards of up to $2,000 to provide financial assistance for:

  • Convening wildfire preparedness events,

  • Enabling on-the-ground community fire risk mitigation work, or

  • Developing grant proposals for the sustainable longevity of their Fire Adapted Community endeavor.

Round 2 is open through February 28, 2024.

Grant Opportunity for Slip-on Tanker Units: This new pilot program from the Department of the Interior will fund local governments to purchase slip-on tanker units, allowing them to quickly convert trucks and other vehicles for operation as wildland fire engines. Governments that provide emergency services to areas with a population of 25,000 or less are eligible to apply and grant amounts will range from $10,000 to $200,000. A new search tool allows communities to determine their eligibility for this program.

Statements of interest are due March 21.

Additional Resources

Biochar in the Southwest: Using New Mexico Practices and Regulations as a Model
CJ Ames and Eva Stricker, PhD, Quivira Coalition and Kelpie Wilson, Wilson Biochar Associates
This workbook from the Quivira Coalition offers practices on New Mexico lands as a model for making and using biochar in a relatively hot, dry, and windy environment. It is both a primer on what biochar is and what makes it a useful tool in land management, as well as a guide on how to produce and distribute it on the land. This workbook is intended to accompany in-field or video training that will enable land stewards and technical service providers to safely produce biochar for use in their operations.
Read the free online version! Hard copies are available for purchase from the Quivira Coalition Store.


Forest Resource Index for Decisions in Adaptation (FRIDA): A library of climate adaptation support tools for forest management.

The Forest Resource Index for Decisions in Adaptation (FRIDA) is a library of climate adaptation support tools for forest stewardship in the Southwest.
FRIDA is an online library of decision-support tools and resources to help support climate change adaptation decision-making and forest stewardship in the Southwest. FRIDA allows managers and decision-makers to easily query based on their objectives and area(s) of interest. Users can filter resources by topic, region/state, resource platform, and vegetation type to efficiently find the most relevant region-specific tools and resources to best fit their needs.

Wildfire Wednesdays #128: Vulnerability in Wildfire Risk Rating

Happy Wednesday, FACNM Community!

Wildfire risk does not exist in a vacuum; many factors contribute to how vulnerable an area or a community is to a potential fire. Proximity to wilderness, ecosystem type, defensible space, building materials and styles, financial standing, digital connectivity, and more influence severity of risk. Today we will be exploring one aspect of this intersectional risk - social vulnerability - and how we can account for it in our community protection planning.

This Wildfire Wednesday features:

Take care,
Rachel

Learn more about the Social Vulnerability Index!

The Social Vulnerability Index

From water shortages to wildfire impacts, research and experience has shown that socially vulnerable groups across the United States are bearing high costs of environmental hardships which are expected to worsen with climate change, population growth, and changes in population centers and habits. Growing evidence indicates that these environmental hardships constitute an environmental injustice, as vulnerable groups are disproportionately exposed.

In the face of wildfires, all communities risk tremendous losses. However, some communities risk losing more of their assets, both tangible and cultural, when their homes or their properties burn. Many rural and under-served communities have no insurance to rebuild their homes; renters are displaced and have no means to recover their valuables; and elderly and disabled residents confront additional threats when responding to events and caring for themselves and their families. Catastrophic wildfire can result in the loss of livelihood for residents and communities as a whole, including loss of jobs, natural resource and tourism industries, and other economic opportunities in the community.

The social vulnerability index refers to the susceptibility of social groups to the adverse impacts of natural hazards. For wildfire, this index can be mapped by overlaying wildfire potential, wildland-urban interface designations, and census tract data. On average, places with high wildfire potential have lower social vulnerability, but nearly 10% of all housing in places with high wildfire potential also exhibit high social vulnerability.

Learn more about tools for evaluating social vulnerability!

Tools for Evaluating Vulnerability

Wildfire Risk to Communities

"Wildfire Risk to Communities" is a user-friendly website developed by the USDA Forest Service to aid communities in comprehending and decreasing their vulnerability to wildfires. This platform, established at the directive of Congress, offers interactive maps, charts, and resources to support informed decision-making. Utilizing the most up-to-date research insights, the website identifies and assesses wildfire vulnerability, equipping communities with the necessary tools to manage and mitigate these risks. The data used in the project is drawn from consistent sources like LANDFIRE for vegetation and fuels, the National Weather Service for weather information, and the U.S. Census Bureau for community data. Notably, wildfires and significant disturbances that happened after 2014 are not yet included in the data.

The website is primarily designed for community leaders such as elected officials, planners, and fire managers. It provides a broad perspective on risk across regions, states, and counties. While accessible for exploration online, the data can also be downloaded as GIS raster layers which enables more in-depth and personalized analysis. The website is intended to be used to compare risk among communities rather than within them and is not suitable for evaluating risk at the local, neighborhood, or individual home level. It also features a tool specifically intended for use with Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) applications.

Justice40 Initiative

Through Presidential Executive Order 14008, the Federal Government has set a goal to have 40% of overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. The categories of investment that fall within the Justice40 Initiative are: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure.

In July 2021, the White House issued formal Interim Implementation Guidance directing all Federal agencies to identify which of their programs are covered under the Justice40 Initiative and to begin implementing a set of reforms to those programs. In January 2023, the White House issued additional guidance to Federal agencies on how to use the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), a geospatial mapping tool that helps bring disadvantaged communities to the forefront of planning. Initiatives like J40 are designed, in part, to create more equitable distribution of wildfire risk reduction costs and benefits.

The CEJST is a designed to identify communities that are marginalized and overburdened by pollution and underinvestment. The CEJST features a user-friendly searchable map that identifies disadvantaged communities across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories, to the extent data are available for the U.S. territories.

Engagement in Community Wildfire Protection Plans

Since the advent of the National Fire Plan in 2000, numerous policies and programs, including the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP), have been implemented for communities across the nation to work collaboratively with public agencies to identify and reduce wildfire risk. Beginning in 2005, collaborators within New Mexico determined the need to incorporate provisions within these CWPPs to account for and uplift socially vulnerable - rural, low-income, and under-served - communities. Papers such as Measuring Community Capacity for Protection from Wildfire recognized that some of these communities lack the human capital (staff or volunteers) and social capacity (including financial resources) to successfully develop and implement CWPPs on their own.

Technical assistance and direct education and outreach can make a great difference in assisting these communities identify high risk areas and recommend strategies for fire protection. A 2008 document, Engaging Socially Vulnerable Populations in Community Wildfire Protection Plans, provides tools to low-income and under-served communities for protection from wildfire:

  • Ensure that low capacity communities are incorporated within Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) goals.

  • Conduct risk assessments that include social as well as biophysical dimensions of risk.

  • Identify vulnerable populations and develop strategies to meet their needs within a CWPP.

  • Monitor and evaluate the impact of CWPPs.

Topics covered include CWPP strategies for low capacity communities, Fostering collaboration, Assessing community capacity in a wildfire risk assessment, and Vulnerable populations.

Following the publication of this 2008 guidance, the NM Forestry Division incorporated the recommendation that CWPPs “recognize the needs of especially vulnerable populations such as the elderly, people with disabilities, and disadvantaged populations” in their 2015 and 2021 CWPP Guidelines. This practice is now standard for the creation and updating of Community Wildfire Protection Plans across the state.

Digital vulnerability during disasters

The Disaster Risk Communication and Digital Vulnerability Among Subsidized Housing Residents report details how some groups may lack the information they need to prepare for and respond to disasters because they are unable to receive digital risk communication due to internet access barriers or lower levels of digital literacy skills. It suggests that practitioners should be more cautious when using digital tools to disseminate information, as many individuals in subsidized housing may have difficulty accessing digital information. The report also provides recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of risk communication in vulnerable communities such as digital literacy training and targeted communication campaigns. Read the report in full and peruse the research brief.

Learn more about Resources and Opportunities!

Resources and Opportunities

Webinars

February 20 at 12pm: Post-Wildfire Recovery Through the Principles of Engineering With Nature
In this one-hour webinar from the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and Joint Fire Science Program, Chris Haring with the Army Corps of Engineers will share lessons learned from post-fire erosion control and ecosystem recovery following the Las Conchas fire in Santa Clara Canyon. Chris’ experience centers around Engineering With Nature-Natural and Nature-Based Features (EWN-NNBF), using post-fire debris and existing materials to stem erosion and degredation of the canyon and its drainages.

2024-2025 Wildfire Risk Reduction Grant Program

New Mexico Counties is pleased to announce the 2024-2025 Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. This grant program assists communities throughout New Mexico to reduce the risk posed by wildland fire on non-federal lands. Funding for this program is provided by the National Fire Plan through the Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management for communities in the wildland-urban interface and is intended to directly benefit communities that may be impacted by wildland fire initiating from or spreading to BLM public land.   

Funding categories include:

Click to view the Wildfire Risk Reduction Program application checklist

  • CWPP updates up to $25,000/project

  • Education and outreach activities up to $20,000/project

  • Hazardous fuels reduction projects up to $100,000/project

Project proposals require a minimum 10% in-kind cost share and must be completed within the 12-month award timeline of July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025. Applications are due to the local BLM field office for signature(s) by Friday, March 1, 2024, and completed application(s) with all signatures are due to NMC by 5:00 p.m. Friday, April 5, 2024.

Please contact Aelysea Webb at (505) 395- 3403 or awebb@nmcounties.org for more information.

Wildfire Wednesdays #127: Homeowner's Insurance & Escalating Wildfire Risks

Hello FACNMers,

In the face of escalating wildfire risks in the Western U.S., homeowner's insurance stands as an important line of defense against climate change-induced calamities. The surge in unprecedented wildfires in recent times has prompted a reassessment of the risks associated with insuring homes in fire-prone regions by homeowners' insurance companies. Numerous conventional carriers now decline to provide insurance coverage for properties in high-risk areas, and some have stopped renewing existing policies. The reluctance of insurers stems from concerns about potential liabilities, exacerbated by the lengthening periods of drought and lessening wet seasons. This flight of insurance companies has happened perhaps first and worst in the state of California, and the struggle there can give context to what the rest of the west may face. Read on for more details.

In this post:

  • Background: California’s Insurance Challenges & the Impact Beyond CA

  • How Do Insurance Companies Determine Coverage?

  • Exploring Possible Solutions

  • Upcoming Opportunities

Happy Reading!

Best,

Dayl

Background

California’s Insurance Challenges

*Information sourced from this NY Times article and this KQED article.

Climate disasters, especially intensifying wildfires, have posed a significant threat to California, impacting the insurance industry and the millions of residents who rely on it. Seven major insurance companies, including Allstate, State Farm, Farmers Insurance, and AIG, have either left California or scaled back their operations in response to the escalating risks. The state's current business model is under threat, necessitating a comprehensive regulatory overhaul.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara faced increased pressure to act as legislative efforts faltered. An executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom urged swift action to strengthen the property market, prompting Lara to announce significant regulatory changes by the end of the next year. The proposed changes aim to enhance market stability, but they also raise concerns about potential premium increases.

Lara's proposed changes include agreements with insurance companies to offer coverage to at least 85% of homeowners in high wildfire-risk areas. This shift aims to transition homeowners from the state's insurer of last resort, the FAIR plan, back to the regular market. Additionally, allowing companies to use forward-looking climate catastrophe models and passing on California-related reinsurance costs are crucial components of the regulatory overhaul.

While the announced changes aim to address the challenges faced by the insurance industry, reactions have been mixed. Some see it as a necessary compromise to ensure both consumer and insurer viability, while others criticize it as a victory for the insurance industry. The potential for higher premiums has raised concerns, but the changing landscape suggests that the era of cheap insurance may be over, requiring homeowners to adapt to a new normal.

The Impact Beyond California

The challenges faced by California's insurance market are reflective of broader trends in the Western U.S. and beyond. Climate-driven disasters are accelerating price hikes, coverage withdrawals, and market instability, posing a global systemic risk. The potential collapse of the insurance market could have far-reaching consequences on the economy, affecting the real estate industry, mortgages, and overall economic stability.

How Do Insurance Companies Determine Coverage?

*Information courtesy of Ashley Dalton, an Insurance Agent with offices in Ruidoso and Alamogordo, NM. View her PowerPoint presentation slides on the topic here.

30-50% of underwriting decisions are based on the two following programs:

For typical structure loss due to fires

Public Protection Class ISO (1971)

• 50% comes from the quality of your local fire department, including staffing levels, training and proximity of the firehouse.

• 40% comes from availability of water supply, including the prevalence of fire hydrants and how much water is available to put out fires.

• 10% comes from the quality of the area’s emergency communications systems (911).

• An extra 5.5% can come from community outreach, including fire prevention and safety courses.

For predicting risks specific to wildland fires in rural areas

ISO Fireline (2004)

• Fuel — Grass, trees, or dense brush feed a wildfire.

• Slope — Steeper slopes can increase the speed and intensity of wildfire.

• Access — Limited access and dead-end roads can impede firefighting equipment.

• Scores range from negligible (0) to low (1), moderate (2–3),high (4–12), and extreme (13–30)

For the remaining 50-70%, it depends on the following: Construction type (fire-resistive, non-combustible, ordinary, heavy timber, wood-framed), roof type, renovations, condition, size, and age.

Exploring Possible Solutions

*Information and ideas are sourced from an interview with Nancy Watkins, a specialist in wildfire risk assessment and climate resilience. Listen to/watch the podcast episode here, and read her related research paper here.

The Need for Comprehensive Data

An important point in this conversation is the need for comprehensive data to thoroughly understand wildfire risk, and this is one of the main disconnects in the world of wildfire insurance. There are major challenges in quantifying risk, especially concerning community-level mitigation efforts, and the data needed to understand the current and future risk of wildfire is evolving rapidly. And while individuals may believe that mitigation efforts should guarantee insurance coverage, certain factors may still deter insurance companies.

The dynamic nature of mitigation work, changing annually, poses difficulties for insurers who cannot conduct on-site inspections regularly. Additionally, satellite imagery may not capture crucial zones near homes. One solution to these difficulties, as suggested by Nancy Watkins, would be to establish a data commons, providing parcel-level inspection data that is aggregated to enhance the quantification of wildfire risk. These data could provide invaluable insights for insurance companies, fire management professionals, scientists, and modelers, offering a more accurate depiction of wildfire risk. It can also lead to insights about where fire mitigation work can provide the most value relative to where a fire may come into a community, such as focusing on properties on the edge of the wildland-urban interface rather than in the middle of a residential development.

Community-Wide Mitigation and Market Incentives

So, what is going to motivate your neighbors to want to be wildfire prepared? Changes to the insurance industry may do the trick, in the form of communities getting official risk designations from insurance companies. This would involve having categories of community risk, just like there are currently categories of community hazard. These risk categories would be based upon what is done near communities to slow fire down, what fire response resources exist in communities, and how people have discouraged the fire from spreading from house to house.

An example of this process might look as follows: if 75% percent of a community has completed measurable mitigation actions, then the risk level as a community would decrease. This system would provide a way to differentiate communities and make them more attractive to insurance companies. These community-level distinctions could also serve to bring community members together and increase participation in programs such as Firewise.

Conclusion

The evolving landscape of homeowner's insurance in the Western U.S. amid escalating wildfire risks signifies a critical juncture where challenges and potential solutions intersect. The significant impact on California's insurance market, marked by the departure of major carriers and regulatory efforts, exemplifies the broader trends affecting the region and beyond. As climate-driven disasters continue to drive price hikes, coverage withdrawals, and market instability, the repercussions extend to the economy, impacting real estate, mortgages, and overall stability. The delicate balance between consumer protection and insurer viability underscores the need for continued dialogue and collaboration to navigate the evolving challenges posed by escalating wildfire risks in the Western U.S.

Upcoming Opportunities


Funding Opportunity

Spring 2024 Fire Adapted Communities grant funding: application portal opening soon!

Are you interested in promoting and developing your community’s fire adapted practices? Motivated to convene community events but need a little help? Consider applying for seed funding this Spring!

FACNM is offering grants of up to $2,000 to Leaders and Members seeking financial assistance to:

  • convene wildfire preparedness events,

  • enable on-the-ground community fire risk mitigation work, or

  • develop grant proposals to ensure the financial longevity of their Fire Adapted Community endeavor.

Job Opportunity

The Forest Stewards Guild is hiring a Southwest Ecological Monitoring Technician for the 2024 season! Applications are due February 9th. Please include a resume, cover letter, and three references sent to collin@forestguild.org.

Read the full position description here.

Upcoming Events

FACNM January Connection Call for Network Members and Leaders

Jan 29, 2024 1:00pm Mountain Time

Network members and leaders, please join us for our January FACNM connection call! We will be discussing network building successes, challenges, and strategies, and experiences with active outreach in our communities.

FAC Net Vulnerability Webinar

Jan 29, 2024 12:00pm Mountain Time

This webinar will provide an overview and quick "how-to" on tools for gathering and leveraging vulnerability data, which can be used to apply for federal grants that benefit under-resourced communities. Topics will include the Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT), Grant Equity Threshold Tool (GETT), and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST).

Webinar: Overview of Prescribed Fire Liability in State Law

Feb 1, 2024 11:30am Mountain Time

Hosted By: The Nature Conservancy and the Fire Learning Network

In this 90-minute webinar, Sara Clark will provide an overview of prescribed fire liability in state law, including definitions of liability and how state laws defining liability interact with certified burn manager programs, tribal sovereignty and cultural burning, and prescribed fire insurance.

Thinking and Working in Projects: A Free ArcGIS Pro training workshop

February 15 · 12:30pm – 4:30pm MST

February 16 · 12:30pm – 4:30pm MST

Objectives of this course: understanding project design and functionality, creating a project from a template, sharing maps, layouts and content between projects, collaborating and integration with AGOL, Portal, streaming services. 

To take part in this training you’ll need an active or trial license to ArcGIS Pro 3.X and will need to download the software before taking the course. You can download a 21-day trial here.

This free workshop is limited to 16 participants and is sponsored by the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute. Registering for the course will reserve your spot on both afternoons.

Spring 2024 Microgrant Funding Opportunity

Spring 2024 Fire Adapted Communities grant funding: application portal opening soon!

Calling all FACNM Members and Leaders

Are you interested in promoting and developing your community’s fire adapted practices? Motivated to convene community events but need a little help? Consider applying for seed funding this Spring!

FACNM is offering grants of up to $2,000 to Leaders and Members seeking financial assistance to:

  • convene wildfire preparedness events,

  • enable on-the-ground community fire risk mitigation work, or

  • develop grant proposals to ensure the financial longevity of their Fire Adapted Community endeavor.

Photo from a green waste disposal event for the community of La Barbaria, made possible by Round 1 microgrant funding from FACNM.

Proposals demonstrating community benefit or FAC capacity building are considered on a semi-annual basis; read about project successes funded by Spring 2023 - Round 1 microgrants. Grantees will be reimbursed for applicable expenses up to their awarded grant amount.

Grant reporting requirements include narrative (~500 words) and photo documentation of the event/work, documentation of community participation (if applicable), and possible creation of a FACNM blog post.

2024 Round 1 proposals will open on January 10 and are due by 11:59pm Mountain Time on February 29, 2024. Grantees will have twelve months from the time of award to utilize the funds.

Not eligible? Become a FACNM Leader or Member today!

FACNM Leader Judy Pierson leads a defensible space demonstration event for her community in central NM, made possible by a microgrant from FACNM.

If you would like to apply for a FACNM microgrant but are not sure if you are eligible, read through our FACNM Membership Structure guide to determine where you fit in the network. To become a FACNM leader and receive first priority for funding opportunities, visit our Leaders webpage and apply today.

Wildfire Wednesdays #126: Resolving to Prepare for Wildfire in the New Year

Happy Wednesday, FACNM Community!

We hope you all are having a lovely holiday season. As our corner of the world tilts into winter, we are using this chilly contemplative time to get back to the basics - of wildfire preparedness. Join us in using this winter to work on home hardening and defensible space, plan a spring community preparedness event, and review best practices for the wildfire season to come.

This Wildfire Wednesday features:

Happy New Year,
Rachel

Learn more about Living with Fire!

Living with Wildfire

A guide for educators and homeowners

Living with Fire (LWF), a Guide for New Mexico Homeowners, provides recommendations and resources to homeowners, educators, community groups, and firefighting professionals to prepare for wildfire and reduce wildfire threats to homes and communities. LWF is a collaborative effort among federal, state, local firefighting agencies, and resource management agencies in New Mexico and across the nation. The LWF program is managed by the University of Nevada Reno, Extension, an EEO/AA institution.

In this Living With Fire Guide, you will find proven steps that communities can take to help protect family and property during wildfire. Responsibility and preparation is where it starts. Click on the image to learn more about community protection, access to your residence, defensible space, the built environment, and evacuation.

Learn more about Ready, Set, Go!

Ready, Set, Go!

Resources for evacuation readiness and safety

New Mexico’s Ready, Set, Go! Guide is designed to assist with planning and preparation for a wildfire emergency. The program helps residents be Ready with preparedness understanding, be Set with situational awareness when fire threatens, and to Go, acting early when a wildfire starts.

This is a great general resource to help you, your friends, family, and neighbors start to make progress toward wildfire preparedness. When doing work around your house or planning for wildfire, talk to those in your community about what you are doing and why.

To get started on the Ready, Set, Go! Guidebook, click here.

Record keeping for fire safety

Keeping important documents with you when evacuating, or storing them digitally in cloud based storage can help support you in the wildfire recovery process.

One often-overlooked aspect of fire preparedness is safekeeping important records, paperwork, photos, and other documents. Visit FACNM’s blog on preparing for spring ignitions to learn more about 10 key items that you should be sure to keep safe, if applicable, and how to store them ahead of time.

Resolve to take these steps for wildfire readiness

The beginning of a new year, when the risk of wildfire is relatively low, is a good time to start thinking about what you can do now to be ready for fire season later.
Our recommendations for your New Year’s resolutions:

  • Develop an emergency plan: choose a safe place to meet, learn evacuation routes, and establish an out-of-town contact. 

  • Take a current photo of you and your pet(s) together in case you get separated during a disaster. 

  • Get to know your neighbors and invite them to be a part of your emergency plan. 

  • Snap photos of important documents and save them in a secure place or online. 

  • Set up group text lists so you can communicate with friends and family during emergencies. 

  • Take a class in CPR and first aid. 

  • Keep and update emergency supplies, including cash. 

  • Have back-up power sources available to charge devices in case of a power outage. 

  • Check your insurance for coverage on disasters like wildfire and floods. Snap pictures of your property for insurance purposes. 

  • Sign up for emergency alerts and warnings. Download the FEMA app or check with your city or county government to see if they have an alert and notification system in place.  

Learn more about Home Improvements for Wildfire!

Home Improvements

Hardening for homeowners and renters

Even small actions can have a big impact on fire outcomes for your home, family and community. Whether you have 10 minutes or 10 hours to dedicate to wildfire preparedness, use that time increase your safety, strengthen community resilience and improve fire outcomes. Not sure where to start? Review the list of quick fire preparedness project ideas from the national Fire Adapted Communities learning network.

Home Hardening

Fire hardened does not mean fireproof; it means your home is prepared for wildfire and ember storms. Home hardening addresses the most vulnerable components of your house with building materials and installation techniques that increase resistance to heat, flames, and embers that accompany most wildfires.

Priorities text courtesy of Santa Clara County FireSafe Council

Yard Preparation and Considerations

An extension of defensible space, the tips and tasks are presented below can be done to prepare your yard and property for wildfire season now and throughout the year.

Property areas and considerations include: borders and hedges, dry vegetative debris, slash chipping, pests and disease, attics and crawl space vents, vegetation spacing, mulch, considerations for birds, holiday tree safety, and more.

Image courtesy of the ‘Tips and Tricks for the Yard’ webpage from SCC FireSafe Council. Visit the website for additional resources related to each yard area.

Inside and Outside the Home

Property protection booklet cover image courtesy of FEMA.

“While you can’t prevent all wildfires from happening, there are some ways to secure your property to minimize damage and keep your home and your future safe.”

Click the image or download the PDF from FEMA to learn simple tricks for how to fortify your space this winter, inside and outside of the home.

Additional resources

Throughout the cold season, set aside some time to click through and visit these resources. An excerpt of topics includes:

Defensible Space

Winter is often the best time to take steps to defend against fire, such as thinning out dense patches of trees, removing flammable brush and weeds, and pruning the limbs of mature trees to reduce contiguous fuels. Thinning and pruning during the cold winter months can also help reduce pest and disease infection in your trees and shrubs.

Maintenance tasks such as clearing flammable debris from gutters and around the home, making sure there are no flammable materials like firewood or patio furniture near your structures, and keeping grass and weeds mowed to less than 4 inches are all things you can do in these winter months and as part of spring cleaning to keep your home protected.

Like other parts of your home, defensible space requires upkeep and conscious decision-making about your space, such as the choice to plant native grasses.

Checklist adapted from NMSU and Firewise® on defensible space actions that can be taken annually

New Mexico State University ACES college, Firewise®, and Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) are just a few of the entities which offer information and checklists to guide your creation of defensible zones and upkeep of defensible space.

“Defensible space is the buffer you create between a building… and the grass, trees, shrubs, or any wildland area that surrounds it. This space is needed to slow or stop the spread of wildfire and it helps protect your home from catching fire—either from embers, direct flame contact or radiant heat. Proper defensible space also provides firefighters a safe area to work in, to defend your home.”

- (CAL FIRE, Ready for Wildfire)

Learn more about Planning Preparedness Events!

Planning a Preparedness Event

How to bring your community together to learn and share

Plan your Project

The idea behind Wildfire Community Preparedness is to bring people together to take action to reduce wildfire hazards in their neighborhood or area. 2023’s Preparedness Day toolkit provided a list of project ideas, safety tips, and more to help guide your community event.

Ideas for Action

Click here to download the action guide!

The National Community Wildfire Preparedness “menu” describes different project ideas that FAC members have organized in tandem with the National Fire Protection Association’s National Community Wildfire Preparedness Day. In addition to project overviews, the menu provides information about costs, equipment, planning needs, etc.

When starting or revamping a chipping program, there are several things to consider, including  assessing need, funding, staffing, outreach and marketing, chipper selection, access and functional needs, chip dispersal and use, and program improvement year over year. FAC Net offers a toolkit for those wondering where to start.

Remember that there are many people across the country who are working toward the same goal as you - to bring their communities together for wildfire preparedness. Back in 2018, one FAC Net member wrote about their experience and applicable lessons learned with Seeking and Finding Community Capacity for Wildfire Resilience.

Learn more about Other Resources!

Other Resources

Educational recordings

FACNM recently launched a YouTube webpage which will house recordings of past webinars and other important informational videos related to the New Mexico Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. Subscribe and share to keep apprised of new recordings when they are released!

Readiness Apps

The Fire Networks blog post “Five Useful Apps for Wildfire Readiness” highlights apps and websites that give access to air quality information, real-time wildfire alerts, a wildfire tracker, and a natural hazard risk assessment tool.

Wildfire Wednesdays #125: Prescribed Burn Associations

Happy December, FACNM Community!

With winter upon us, the season for pile burning, a type of prescribed burning, has begun. Prescribed burning (also called controlled burning or controlled fire) is an incredibly important tool used across the country to promote healthier forests and reduce the risks of wildfire. It also features prominently as a treatment in many landscape-scale projects. While you may think of prescribed burns as something done only by federal employees wearing yellow nomex shirts and hardhats, this tool is actually utilized a diverse array of organizations and individuals concerned with the health of their surrounding ecosystems. Today we will discuss Prescribed Burn Associations, an integral part of putting this tool into the hands of landowners and communities.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

Best,
Dayl

Learn more about Prescribed Burn Associations!

What is a Prescribed Burn Association?

This Prescribed Burn Association Interactive Map from the Great Plains Fire Science Exchange shows active PBAs across the U.S.

A Prescribed Burn Association (PBA) is a group of landowners and other interested people from a specific geographic area that form a partnership to help one another conduct prescribed burns. The first PBAs, also referred to as prescribed burn cooperatives, were formed in Nebraska around 1995, Texas in 1997, and Oklahoma in 2001 to overcome the constraints limiting the use of prescribed fire on rangelands.

These associations are community-built efforts in which members combine their knowledge, equipment, and other resources to provide learning opportunities and reduce barriers with the end goal of implementing more prescribed burns as private landowners. Common barriers include personal and professional liability associated with fire use, lack of training, lack of equipment, and lack of resources. It can be very difficult for private landowners to gain the hands-on training needed to safely and effectively use prescribed fire, and PBAs can provide that training while building a network of engaged landowners who can connect on an array of land management concerns.

In the broader context of land management, PBAs can also help fill the gaps in capacity that result from overburdened agencies with a backlog of millions of acres to burn. Because PBAs can operate with much less overhead and formality than agency-implemented burns, they are more agile and flexible in their pathways to implementing prescribed burns in their communities.

As a coalition of neighbors, friends, and locals, PBAs can build trust, improve attitudes toward fire, and increase the social acceptability of using prescribed fire as a management tool. In south-central North Carolina, the Sandhills PBA offers one example of how quickly attitudes can change:

As part of the initial community gathering rolling out the Sandhills PBA, attendees were surveyed before and after the meeting. Beforehand, 34% of the attendees planned to join the PBA and 16% said they would not join. After the meeting, 56% of attendees had decided to join and 0% remained opposed! Read more about this success story here.

For more information about prescribed burn associations, this FAC Learning network webinar recording discusses PBAs and is part of a webinar series about different wildfire resilience programs around the country. Learn about Fire Councils and Training Exchange Programs as part of the series!

Learn more about the NM Prescribed Fire Council!

NM Prescribed Fire Council

New Mexico has what is called a Prescribed Fire Council (PFC). These councils are generally statewide organizations that often work in tandem and share many common goals with localized prescribed burn associations. PFCs allow private landowners, fire practitioners, agencies, non-governmental organizations, policymakers, regulators, and others to exchange information related to prescribed fire and promote public understanding of the importance and benefits of fire use.

A map showing which states have Prescribed Fire Councils, from the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils, Inc.

PFCs date back to 1975, when the first council in the US was created in Florida in response to rapid development in Miami. Shortly thereafter, the North Florida Prescribed Fire Council was created in 1989 and more explicitly focused on prescribed fire. Neighboring states observed the success of Florida’s programs and began adopting the council model to incorporate federal, state, and private interests. Eventually, prescribed fire councils started to spread beyond the Southeast and across the country. Today, most states have established councils.

For those who want to get involved in New Mexico, membership in the New Mexico Prescribed Fire Council is open to anyone who has a passion for utilizing beneficial fire as a land management tool. Visit the website to become a member or to learn more about the resources provided by the council.

For more information about prescribed fire councils, view this FAC Learning Network webinar recording for a brief overview!

Learn more about the training course!

NM State Forestry’s Prescribed Fire Training Course

New Mexico EMNRD Forestry Division (‘State Forestry’) launched a free publicly available prescribed burning curriculum in autumn 2023. This training, required by the passage of the 2021 Prescribed Burning Act, is accessed through their website. Both primary training and certification waivers are offered through their Canvas portal, where interested individuals can create a free account using the code provided on the Forestry Division - Prescribed Burning webpage. You can choose to sign up for pile burning or broadcast burning courses and progress through the interactive modules which cover topics such as safety, public relations, fire behavior, techniques, etc. Learn more about the Act, and the Curriculum available to landowners and individuals interested in learning how to conduct prescribed burns in a safe manner, by attending the FACNM webinar on Supporting Prescribed Fire in New Mexico on 12/7/23 from 2-3pm.

The dashboard for the learning portal.

Learn more about upcoming events and announcements!

Upcoming Webinars & Prescribed Fire in the News

Webinars

Webinar: Supporting Prescribed Fire in New Mexico
Thursday, December 7th

Join FACNM as we discuss New Mexico's new certified burn program and ways to responsibly and safely increase implementation of prescribed fire across jurisdictions and land boundaries in the state! This presentation is open to practitioners, leaders, and members of the public.

Webinar: Developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans in Your Community
14 December, 2023 / 10 January, 2024 at 12:00pm

Learn what a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is, including: why your community may need one, what the process involves, what the components are, what resources you need to complete one, how to use CWPPs to support funding for implementation, and more! Join the webinar to hear about how CWPPs are increasingly being used to direct various funding opportunities, including Community Wildfire Defense Grants (CWDG). This program will also be offered en español.

In the News

NM Fire Info - Pile Burning Projects Planned Across Carson National Forest
With the arrival of winter weather, Carson National Forest fire crews are preparing to continue prescribed fire activities, this time in the form of pile burning. Thinning and prescribed fire are two of the most important tools of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy to promote healthier forests and reduce the risks of wildfire. Planned pile burning in the Carson National Forest this winter will contribute to major landscape projects across the forest. National Forests across the state, including the Carson, have incorporated the findings and recommendations of the summer 2022 prescribed burning pause and resulting National Prescribed Fire Program Review to ensure that prescribed fires follow more rigorous standards, have more impactful checks and balances, and prioritize the safety of firefighters and communities.

Thinning and prescribed fire are two of the most important tools of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy to promote healthier forests and reduce the risks of wildfire. Planned pile burning in the Carson National Forest this winter will contribute to major landscape projects across the forest.  

NPR All Things Considered Radio Story - This Year Saw More Prescribed Fire Than Ever Before
Listen to this recent story from a prescribed burn in El Rito, which paints the picture of a broadcast burn and much of what it entails. It also provides the unique historical and social context of prescribed fire in northern New Mexico—a teeter-totter where on one side we have communities understandably opposed to prescribed fire given the tragic events of last year, and on the other side the dire need for fuels reduction to avoid catastrophic wildfires in the future. The two are inextricably linked, and fire practitioners must find the balance.

HEPA Filter Loan Programs

Portable HEPA air filters provide clean and healthy breathable air to individuals and households by filtering out very small and harmful particles, such as those carried in wildfire smoke, allergens, and industrial smog. FACNM offers a HEPA filter loan program, with several participating areas across north and central New Mexico. These are prioritized for loan to smoke-sensitive individuals during periods of smoke impacts and are shared in coordination with network partners, such as the Carson National Forest. A November 24 article from NPR linked in the section above detailed the importance of a HEPA filter loan program in building public trust, saying “today [Angie Krall, El Rito District Ranger, will] stop by a community library and lend an air filter to someone with asthma.”

Smoke from wildfires and prescribed fires is a serious concern as it can cause or exacerbate health conditions for some people living in fire-adapted communities. The Carson National Forest - El Rito Ranger District is part of this program, and folks in that area can reserve filters directly with them by calling (575) 581-4554.

Wildfire Wednesdays #124: The Language of Wildfire

Happy Wednesday, FACNM family.

Language has always fascinated me, especially regional dialects - these variations of the same language that develop over time and differ, sometimes significantly, because they are built by the unique environment, activities, and influence on any one area. Native speakers of the same language may yet encounter a language barrier if they grew up learning different dialects!

The language of wildfire is not so different. Individuals who have been steeped in this terminology are well versed to understand and speak it easily, while ‘fire speak’ can sound pretty foreign and unintelligible to folks who haven’t encountered it before. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday seeks to simplify and explain this language and the way we use it so that we all have access to the same common lexicon, knowing that effective communications build support for sound wildfire policies.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • Basic fire terminology

  • Techniques for fire communication

  • Resources and opportunities

Be well and stay warm,
Rachel

Basic Terminology

Establishing a common vocabulary

Wildfire is our common denominator - regardless of age, background, place, or culture, we all are impacted by it in the Southwest (and increasingly across the country). We may be directly impacted as a fire burns close to our town or indirectly via smoke, the impacts on our loved ones living elsewhere, or the anxiety caused when we hear about it on the news. To understand one another when we talk about fire, from the names we give it (wildfire, managed fire, prescribed fire) to the way we interact with it (suppression, boxing it in, preparing for fire), we must build a shared vocabulary and boil down the technical jargon to find common ground through plain English.

Tools for learning

The first video below provides a basic introduction to terms you may hear in fire management, including ignition source, containment, wildfire versus interface fire, size explanation, control, fire escapes, holding, hot spots, evacuation notices, and more. This video was produced in Vancouver, B.C., so it is worth noting that in the U.S. fires are generally measured in acres; 1 hectare is equivalent to approximately 2.5 acres.

The second video provides a quick introduction to terminology you may hear during an explanation of active wildfire (such as a morning fire briefing), including how to describe behavior and parts of the fire. This includes terms like flanks, fingers, pockets, islands, creeping, running, spotting, fire whirl, crowning, and more. Some of these terms will be used during other types of fire such as controlled burning.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group also provides an online Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology and the (easier to use) searchable PDF which comprehensively list phrases and acronyms used in federal wildfire management. While this tool is helpful for understanding language used by federal fire practitioners and collaborators, it does not necessarily allow for the two-way construction of shared language with members of the public.

Moving beyond specific words and technical terms for wildland fire, let’s dive into how we talk about fire more broadly.

Techniques for Fire Communication

Building Support for Sound Wildfire Policies through Communication

Think back to a day that you were put in a bad mood because of something someone said to you - it may not have been what they said, but how they said it or the specific words they used that nagged at you. The way that we share and receive information matters, especially about something as emotionally charged as wildfire (and associated land management and community preparedness practices). This section provides some suggestions from the Wildfire Resilience Roadmap about being mindful of our fire language.

 

Summary: Across the country, a majority of Americans believe that forest health as worsening, and concern about wildfires has been steadily growing even among those not directly impacted. They overwhelmingly support a framework to reduce severe fire risk through improved forest management and the use of intentional fire – support that cuts across geography, party, gender, age, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Research shows that people would rather invest now to reduce severe fire risk than later to address the aftermath of fires, including investments in year-round, trained teams to reduce the risk of severe wildfires. At the same time, innate and growing skepticism about government makes it challenging but important to document these policies’ proven track record and to highlight provisions requiring accountability and transparency in carrying out risk reduction strategies.

 

Communication Recommendations

These recommendations are taken from Appendix B of the Wildfire Resilience Roadmap and are based on 2022 general public opinion research. See the excerpted PDF here.

Illustration of two individuals talking with thought bubbles showing that they are both thinking the same thing

Image adapted from Patrick Buggy’s explanation of effective communication

  • Build on growing concern that fires are more severe and more frequent: messaging does not need to persuade voters that a problem exists – rather, it needs to funnel their existing concern into support for action.

  • Do not rely on concern about wildfire smoke to leverage action: while poor air quality tends to be a concern when and where problems with wildfire smoke are occurring, as the winds shift and fires die down, intensity of concern does as well. Instead, focus on fires themselves.

  • Do not count on using climate change as a rationale for action: climate change ranks in the middle-tier of a list of factors that the general public believes is contributing to increasingly frequent and severe wildfires. Deep ideological polarization continues to play a substantial role in perceptions of climate change.

  • Focus on impacts of climate change, most notably the contribution of droughts to the greater frequency and severity of fires: even without explicitly naming climate change as the cause, clearly describe its visible, tangible and current impacts on forests and pivoting to how to help them.

  • Acknowledge the important ecological role of fire: highlighting the benefits of normal, healthy fire cycles can be helpful.

  • Stress the need for improved forest management to prepare for fire: there is bipartisan agreement that the current approach to forest management isn’t working and that the overall condition of America’s forests has worsened over the last few years.

  • Do not ignore the need for more careful public behavior in and around fire-prone forests: many members of the public believe that a large share of wildland fires is started by humans, whether through a discarded cigarette or a campfire left unattended. Have open communication about fire exclusion versus fire suppression.

Table showing different groups of people and their perceived level of responsibility for wildfire risk management

Respondents of the research survey voted on who they felt should bear the burden of responsibility for reducing the risk of severe wildfire.

  • Focus on the role of partnerships in acting to reduce fire risk: every level of government, timber companies, residents of fire-prone areas, conservation organizations, and insurance companies bear responsibility for reducing the risk of severe wildfire.

  • Use the term “controlled burn”: while it may be considered less scientifically accurate, the general public prefers and better understands the term “controlled burn” in comparison to “prescribed fire.”

  • Focus on the principle of preparation: we intuitively understand and value saving money and lives by stopping unnecessary fires from happening and ensuring that ones that do occur are manageable and limited in their negative impacts. Contrasting the high financial and emotional cost of in the aftermath of a wildfire with the relatively low cost of intervention before the fact is highly persuasive. “When it comes to reducing wildfire risk, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

  • Highlight the creation and support of a year-round workforce: while wildfires are seasonal, land management is not, necessarily. It makes sense to invest more evenly throughout the year, keeping workers stably-employed, fairly-paid, and connected to the land, than to hurriedly try to assemble a competent workforce as fires occur.

Woman in yellow nomex stands holding an ax and looking away from the camera, back toward some low-burning flames in a smoky pine forest.

  • Call out the need to protect and support first responders whose lives are at risk in addressing wildfires: build support for investments in wildfire risk reduction by reminding people that reducing the intensity and severity of wildfires makes a tough job less dangerous and more manageable.

  • Do not use language focused generally on equity in distributing funds, but instead explain the context: given careful wording, members of the public consider communities with high risk and few resources as a high priority for funding.

  • Do not focus on investing in protection of timber supplies or recreational areas: these are things that could be restored or recovered more easily if need be than water supply, habitat, or human communities.

  • Do not rely on the word “resilience” alone: resilience is seen as a quality displayed in recovery after a disaster has struck, rather than one that reflects an ability to avoid its worst harms. Preparation, safety and health are better since they leave open the possibility that a community could avoid the worst impacts of a disaster – rather than conceding that they will occur. Focus on concrete and desirable outcomes, such as “safe and healthy forests” or “fire-prepared communities.”

Rocky jutting grey mountain crags slope steeply down to a deep blue choppy lake ringed by green conifer trees

Lake Katherine, just south of Santa Fe Baldy, in the Pecos Wilderness east of Santa Fe.

  • Do not assume that people understand how fire threatens water supplies - rather, convey the reality and seriousness of the risks: once the process by which fires lead to contamination of survey water is briefly explained, people find it compelling.

  • Stress provisions for public disclosure, audits, and fiscal accountability in any public spending proposal: in general, we show high degrees of skepticism about “government” writ large. In any discussion of significant federal investment in wildfire risk reduction, that skepticism (and related fears of waste) emerges as the biggest obstacle to winning public support.

  • Use state and federal agencies with land management responsibility as messengers: people understand federal land managers as being guided by the mission of protecting the health of forests for current and future generations and wildlife, and largely trust information from these groups as being free of a profit motive or ideological agenda.

  • Give wildland firefighters, park rangers, wildlife biologists and Tribal leaders prominent roles as messengers: we trust messengers who we see as neutral experts on fire issues, such as park rangers, wildlife biologists, and tribal leaders. We also value those with firsthand experience, such as people who have lost their homes to wildfires.

Resources and Opportunities

Webinars

7 December, 2023 at 2:00pm: Supporting Prescribed Fire in New Mexico

Join FACNM as we discuss New Mexico's new certified burn program and ways to responsibly and safely increase implementation of prescribed fire across jurisdictions and land boundaries in the state! This presentation is open to practitioners, leaders, and members of the public. Read more about the new certification program here.

For those interested in getting involved now, the self-paced online training for the New Mexico Certified Burn Manager Program is available, with options for pile burn or broadcast burn certification!

29 November / 14 December, 2023 / 10 January, 2024 at 12:00pm: Developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans in Your Community

Flyer excerpt for the CWPP webinar

Learn what a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is and why your community may need one, what the process involves and what the components are, what resources you need to complete a CWPP, how to use CWPPs to support funding for implementation and more! Join the webinar to hear about how CWPPs are increasingly being used to direct various funding opportunities, including Community Wildfire Defense Grants (CWDG). This program will also be offered en español.

Online Portals

Landing page for the new Fire Networks website. White text over a dark picture of flames burning low through a smokey conifer forest.

Landing page for the new Fire Networks website

One site to access fire resources, news and events, and contacts: the Fire Learning Network (FLN), Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (FAC Net), Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN), and Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX and WTREX) have launched a new website! At firenetworks.org you’ll find information about each of the networks and the way they tackle our fire challenges with unique and complementary approaches to a common goal.

In the News

Map of the Rio Grande Water Fund spanning land ownership and jurisdictions

The Rio Grande Water Fund is highlighted as “one example of an emerging adaptation strategy that is working within—and beyond—existing legal and policy frameworks to accomplish more collaborative efforts across jurisdictional lines and administrative barriers” in the Frontiers in Climate article “Adaptive Governance Strategies to Address Wildfire and Watershed Resilience in New Mexico's Upper Rio Grande Watershed.”

Wildfire Wednesdays #123: How Cross-Boundary Partnerships Bolster Fire Adapted Communities - A Success Story

 Hello FAC NM followers,

Starting the process of working within our communities to become fire adapted is often challenging, and it can be even more difficult to sustain. Making headway requires a force of will, a collective push for change, and ideal conditions coalescing! While the barriers to progress can feel daunting, you are far from alone in your work to build communal resilience. This week, we highlight the success of one community’s partnerships and the extensive wildfire mitigation work that these partnerships have enabled.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • The story of Horseshoe Springs Association’s (HSA) Jemez Mountains wildfire mitigation work

  • Takeaways from HSA’s success

  • Updates and opportunities

Best,
Dayl

Horseshoe Springs Association’s wildfire mitigation work in the Jemez Mountains

Fall scene in the Jemez Mountains captured using a drone camera. Photo by Mario Pratti

Working together for landscape resilience

Picture this: It’s a warm summer day in a lovely, forested neighborhood in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Picturesque cabins dot the hillsides and nestle among the trees. The sun is streaming through a canopy of spruce, fir, and pine, the air smells astringent and fresh, and the sounds of equipment and voices are deadened by a hush created by the mature coniferous forest and its soft duff-covered floor. Residents are out in their yards raking pine needles, chipping slash, and pruning and thinning ladder fuels from the forest around their homes. Everyone is pitching in to do the work that can keep their community safe from wildfire. The community recently received wildfire risk mitigation funding from their local Soil and Water Conservation District, a crucial partnership which enables them to complete this work to improve defensible space in the neighborhood. Nearby, on adjacent Forest Service land, contractors are completing a thinning project on hundreds of acres that will further ensure the community’s resilience to fire. All this work lies within the footprint and is one component of a larger cross-jurisdictional project to increase the resilience of forests and watersheds…

If it sounds a bit too idyllic to be true, we invite you to learn about the Horseshoe Springs Association (HSA).

This scene (with some artistic license on the writer’s part) is the story of HSA, a neighborhood of 50 homes and cabins established in the La Cueva area of the Jemez Mountains in the 1950s and 60s. Their community showcases the success enabled by functional partnerships across agencies and organizations.

In the early days of the neighborhood, there were fire and safety rules in place that required cabin owners to rake pine needles within 30 feet of structures or fuel sources such as wood piles and propane tanks—rules which were later incorporated into the Association’s covenants. Community chipper days to process slash have been held by the Association nearly annually for the last 15 years. Moving beyond individual responsibility, the community has actively partnered with the Forest Service for decades. In the early 2000s, forest thinning to reduce tree densities was completed on HSA’s 64 acres of common land through the USDA Forest Land Enhancement Program (FLEP). The Forest Service began thinning 257 acres of National Forest adjacent to the neighborhood in summer of 2023. A recent partnership with the Cuba Soil and Water Conservation District has brought in grant funding to support hazardous fuel reduction by contractors on private land in the community.

Current status and future work

A ponderosa pine forest in the Jemez Mountains, before and after a thinning project. Sue Harrelson/USFS

As of fall 2023, 27 out of 50 cabin owners in HSA have signed up for thinning through the Cuba SWCD grant and about half of those have already had their property thinned.  Another 10-15 cabins were already at or below the target density level, leaving fewer than twenty percent of the cabins with higher-than-recommended tree density.  In addition, HSA has applied to have 20 acres of common land thinned under the grant program, focusing on the areas closest to possible ignition sources. This community-level work dovetails with the mission of the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership, a landscape-scale effort to promote resilient forests and watersheds in northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. HSA lies within the project boundary of the 2-3-2, allowing for each project to leverage the funding and forest resilience work of the other by creating landscape-scale restoration areas. This overlap will further enhance the Association’s dedicated mitigation work.

Horseshoe Springs Association is well on its way to becoming fully realized as a Fire Adapted Community, but they couldn’t have done it alone. It is through cross-boundary partnerships and landscape-scale work that they continue to protect themselves from wildfires that regularly move through the Jemez Mountains. When thinking about our work in forest resilience, it is important to acknowledge that much of our regional land management wisdom is derived from the selective logging performed by Ancestral Pueblo people who coexisted with frequent fires in the Jemez. The work of HSA also takes root in the residents’ respect for fire and their understanding that “fire is a question of when, not if”, in the words of resident Brent Bonwell.

Learning from the Success of Others

Close calls as a call to action

This map shows the proximity of the Cerro Pelado Fire to local communities on May 4, 2022. La Cueva, where HSA is located, was 7 miles from the fire. Image sourced from Los Alamos Reporter.

Wildfires have come close to the community - the 2022 Cerro Pelado fire came within seven miles of the neighborhood, and large fires in the past, such as Las Conchas in 2011 and Thompson Ridge in 2013, have loomed threateningly nearby. While fire has played an important ecological role in ponderosa pine forests for millennia and historical tree-ring fire scar evidence shows that the large size of these modern fires is not unusual, the high-severity tree-killing nature of them is (see this story map of fires in the Jemez). That catastrophic quality is precisely what threatens neighborhoods in the wildland urban interface (WUI), like Horseshoe Springs, and compels them to accelerate their community protection efforts.

Learn more about the fire history of the La Cueva area of the Jemez Mountains in this report by Dendrochrologist Dr. Tom Swetnam.
Listen to Tom speak about fire history in the area at 12pm on November 14 in a FACNM webinar on Fire, Forests, and People in the Jemez Mountains, NM.

Key takeaways from HSA’s work

Communication across boundaries is essential. Without a strong relationship with the Forest Service, Cuba SWCD, and others, much of the thinning work in and around Horseshoe Springs may never have been completed.

Opportunities to fund these projects are important—without the money, how can we do the work? Property owners within the Cuba Soil and Water Conservation District had the opportunity to enter into cost-share agreements and have up to 80% of the cost of their thinning work paid. Local grant programs like these are essential to empowering communities. FAC NM offers microgrants to provide seed funding for community protection efforts like this.

This work takes time. It has taken HSA decades, the dedication of individual landowners, and opportunistic partnerships to reach the point they are at now, with over 80% of properties in the neighborhood thinned to a recommended tree density.

Everyone has a role to play in fire adaptation and ecological restoration. It is through collective action, education, and overlapping projects that we will see large-scale fire adaptation.

Upcoming Events and Opportunities

Webinars

November 1st, 2023, 10:00 - 11:30am MDT: Smoke: State of the Science
Join for a live virtual session focused on the State of the Science about smoke. This facilitated panel discussion will be guided by your questions. Registration is required. Live session will be recorded and posted on the Rocky Mountain Research Station website here: SYCU - Webinars | US Forest Service Research and Development

December 14th, 2023 9am - 10:30am ET: The Future is Smoky, one of four Fueling Collaboration sessions
With increasing wildfire activity due to changes in climate, smoke will likely become more prevalent and continue to have an effect on society. Earlier this year, smoke from Canada wildfires lowered air quality in the eastern U.S. to its worst levels in recorded history. As the climate heats up and creates drier conditions, smoky skies will grow increasingly common. Health concerns and prescribed burning actions needed to restore functioning ecosystems will be impacted by already smoky conditions across the country. Panelists include research meteorologists, air quality experts, and fire practitioners. Together, they will explore how we can address and adapt to a smoky future.

Wildfire Wednesdays #122: LANDFIRE data and planning

Hi FACNM community,

As wildfire frequency and severity continue to increase, we must be strategic in where and when we complete forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction work. As Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen put it, '“instead of random acts of restoration, we must share decisions and place treatments where they can produce desired outcomes at a meaningful scale.”

To support strategic planning for wildfire risk reduction, we must use the best available data for the biophysical conditions within our planning areas. One of the most commonly used data sources for planning fire and forest management projects, is LANDFIRE data. Our planning and modelling for fire and forestry projects is limited by the quality of the LANDFIRE dataset. With this in mind, this week’s Wildfire Wednesdays will focus on sharing information about how we can improve the quality and accuracy of the LANDFIRE dataset by providing input for the 2023 update that is happening now.

This Wildfire Wednesday’s includes:

  • An overview of LANDFIRE data

  • Information about how to provide updates to the LANDFIRE dataset

  • Wildfire Risk to Communities - a user-friendly tool for LANDFIRE data

  • A webinar about how LANDFIRE data is used for modelling

  • General updates and opportunities

Best,
Gabe

LANDFIRE Overview

LANDFIRE data is used to establish wildfire risk for ranking funding proposals, insurance industry evaluations of risk, fire management planning, and more. This dataset is behind much of the work we do and it is important that we understand it.

LANDFIRE (LF), Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools, is a shared program between the wildland fire management programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior, providing landscape scale geo-spatial products to support cross-boundary planning, management, and operations.

LF data characterize the current and historical states of vegetation, fuels, fire regimes, and disturbances. LF produces a comprehensive, consistent, scientifically credible suite of more than 25 geospatial layers, a reference database, and a set of quantitative vegetation models at a national extent. LF data supports landscape assessments, analysis, and natural resource management. LF supplements and assists modeling of fire behavior and effects.

Update LANDFIRE Dataset

LF has transitioned to annual updates and needs as much time as possible to process data. LF is asking for data to be submitted or available in database systems by October 31st. Please make every effort to have your FY 2023 data accessible to LF by October 31, 2023. Data accessibility may include entering data into online databases/Systems of Record (SOR) so it can be obtained by LF. Data submitted after the deadline will be used if schedules allow. All data contributions must meet LF requirements.

The primary focus of this data call is to collect FY 2023 disturbance and treatment activities. To make annual updates possible LF is asking for data from the fiscal year which runs from 10/01/2022 – 09/30/2023. LF now requires disturbance/treatment date or fiscal year to be included with your data submission,. This will ensure your data are processed correctly. The secondary focus is to collect vegetation/fuel plot data. LF also welcomes feedback on current products.

LF needs your help to collect four types of data:

  • Disturbance/Treatment polygons: Disturbance and treatment polygons are first priority data for updates (LF 2012, LF 2014, etc.) and are processed and maintained in the LF Events Geodatabase.

  • Vegetation and Fuel Plot data:Vegetation and fuel plot data are the first priority data for mapping (LF c2001 / LF Remap) and are processed and maintained in the LF Reference Database (LFRDB)

  • Invasive Species Data: LF is accepting submissions of polygon or plot based invasive species data.

  • Lidar Data Lidar data are first priority data for mapping (LF Remap) and will be used to develop vegetation structure models.

  • Feedback on LF products: Feedback is secondary priority data for updates and remaps.
    Submit feedback through the LF Help Desk.

For data submission, questions, or you are aware of other data sources, contact:

Brenda Lundberg
LANDFIRE Reference Data Administrator
blundberg@contractor.usgs.gov

Using LANDFIRE Data

Not everyone needs to have GIS abilities to use LANDFIRE data to understand and explore their wildfire risk. To make the dataset more accessible, the USDA Forest Service created the Wildfire Risk to Communities tool.

Wildfire Risk to Communities is built from nationally consistent data, including:

  • Vegetation and fire-behavior fuel models from the interagency LANDFIRE program

  • Topographic data from the United States Geological Survey

  • Historical weather patterns from the National Weather Service

  • Long-term simulations of large wildfire behavior from the USDA Forest Service

  • Community data from U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Energy

Upcoming Events and Opportunities

Webinars

SWFSC: Overview and Verification of LANDFIRE Fuels: 2022 Cooks Peak Fire

Nov 8, 2023 12:00 PM  MT

A practitioner-oriented overview of LANDFIRE with a focus on fuels and how they react to modeling techniques. The subject area of discussion will be the 2022 Cooks Peak fire located in northern New Mexico. This webinar will be technical in its application and may offer insights for both beginner and advanced LANDFIRE users.

Presenters: Tobin Smail, LANDFIRE Next Gen Fuels Lead, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Modeling Institute; and Charley Martin, LANDFIRE Fuels, TSSC Contract USGS/KBR

FACNM - Fire, Forests, and People in the Jemez Mountains, NM: The Long View from Tree Rings and Archaeology

Nov 14th, 12:00 PM MT

In this webinar from the Fire Adapted New Mexico learning network, presenter Dr. Thomas Swetnam discusses the long view on fire, forests, and people in the Southwest through the lens of tree rings (dendrochronology) and archaeology. Although the past is not a perfect guide for the future, the history of people, forests and fires in the Jemez Mountains provides useful insights for restoring and living within resilient forest landscapes today.

View the webinar by registering through Zoom or by joining through Facebook Live on November 14 at 12:00pm.

Job Opportunities

State Forestry Division is hiring two full-time year-round Wildland Fire Hotshot Crews

Applications for hotshot crew superintendent are being accepted now.

The Forest Stewards Guild is hiring a Watershed Restoration Manager in the SW

Applications for the manager are being accepted now.


Wildfire Wednesdays #121: Understanding Past, Present, and Future Fire Patterns Through Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Analysis

Hello, FACNM readers!

My name is Dayl Velasco. I’m a project coordinator at the Forest Stewards Guild and the newest contributor to the FACNM blog. Much of my work revolves around fire, from assisting with prescribed burns to collecting data on forest health pre- and post-thinning and burning to measure landscape resilience, and I’m excited to continue working in this realm as I help to coordinate the FACNM learning network. Nice to meet you!

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday focuses on how scientists use the life history of fire scarred trees that is recorded in their rings (seen in a crosscut of wood) to understand historic fire regimes and date specific fire events. You’ll be introduced to the North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network, which was compiled in 2022 and contains over 37,000 sampled trees across North America. You’ll learn about work closer to home with a brief overview of New Mexico’s own Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab and the research they do and the story of a recently analyzed old ponderosa pine that fell near Jemez Springs and offered its tales up to science, to be absorbed into the tree-ring network. Throughout, we’ll keep in mind how this research guides our work to build resilience in our forests and communities.

This Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

  • Understanding past, present, and future fire patterns through tree-ring fire-scar analysis

  • Close to home: the largest mountain-range fire scar network in North America

  • Applying the science to FACNM

  • Resources and Upcoming Opportunities

-Dayl

Understanding past, present, and future fire patterns through tree-ring fire-scar analysis

Back to basics: what is tree ring analysis?

Ellis Margolis cross dates an old piece of ponderosa pine from the Tesuque watershed outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Collin Haffey, USGS Public domain.

In a world where wildfires are increasing in severity year-after-year, driven by climatic changes and increased fuel loads as a result of over 100 years of fire suppression, we know that fire is a force we must learn to live with. This is especially true in the southwest’s fire-adapted forests. As we move toward adaptation ourselves, it is helpful to ground our current understanding of wildfire in the context of centuries-old fire regimes. So, how do we build this historical context?

This is where the trees and the scientists who study them come in. First, some basics: if you’ve ever seen a cut tree stump, you’ve probably noticed that the top of a stump has a series of concentric rings. These rings can tell us how old the tree is, and what the weather was like during each year of the tree’s life. The light-colored rings represent wood that grew in the spring and early summer, while the dark rings represent wood that grew in the late summer and fall. One light ring plus one dark ring equals one year of the tree’s life (NASA, 2017). Dendrochronology is the study of these tree rings to answer questions about the natural world and the place of humans in its functioning.

Trees contain immense histories in their rings and dendrochronologists understand how to read and interpret these records. The information preserved in tree-ring growth records, from fires to weather conditions, reads like a history of the land where they grew for their entire life span - that can be over 1,000 years for some trees! Historical environmental conditions are expressed as wide or narrow rings or changes in growth patterns. Wide rings indicate years of plentiful moisture while narrow rings indicate drought. Ring width can also be correlated with temperature, especially in cooler climates and higher elevations. Learn more about tree rings from the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

Fire scar position and seasonality within the tree-ring and corresponding calendar year. Click to view an enlarged image.

When a fire moves through a forest, some trees may burn and experience damage to their cambium - or living tissue just below the bark - but not die. This results in a fire scar, where a tree produces sap to cover its scorch wound. As the tree heals and grows around the scorch wound, these scars remain visible within the growth ring of the year in which the fire occurred. It’s important to note that if a tree has recorded multiple fire events, the fires it experienced were likely low- to moderate-severity, or just intense enough to create a scar but not enough to kill the tree. High-severity fires are traceable through tree rings as well, but scientists depend on a record from trees that were able to survive on the less intense outer edges of these fires since trees in the middle are often casualties of the blaze. A robust dataset of tree-ring fire scars, taken from a broad area, can tell us the exact year and season a fire burned, its severity and size, and overall fire frequency from centuries before modern records began.

This field fire history reconstruction through tree-ring fire scars is called Dendropyrochronology (for all you logophiles out there). Read a more in-depth description of fire history reconstruction here.

The North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network

Yellow dots represent the more than 2,500 fire-scar sites that currently make up the network across North America. Credit: Ellis Margolis, USGS.

The North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network was formed in 2022 and compiles tree-ring data from more than 2,500 sites across the entire North American continent. Through the network arise new opportunities to understand the influences of climate, humans, and land use on past, current, and future fire regimes.

The team that undertook the monumental task of analyzing data from more than 37,000 fire-scarred trees across North America found evidence of historical low-severity fire in all but two ecoregions of the continent. This evidence was often found in areas that have not burned for one hundred years or more due to anthropogenic fire suppression.

The network also shows that human influence strongly impacts fire regimes. This is clearly demonstrated at the border of the United States and Mexico, where fires stopped being recorded in the tree ring record on the U.S. side around 1900 as suppression became the norm (creating the fire deficit that helped set the stage for modern megafires), but on the other side in northern Mexico fires continued to burn, be recorded in tree rings, and maintain resilient ecosystems to the present day.

Read more about the North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network in this article.

Dendropyrochronology Close to Home

The largest mountain-range fire scar network in North America: fire regime reconstruction in the Jemez Mountains

The tree-ring fire scar network in the Jemez Mountains covering >300,000 acres.  Colored symbols represent individual fire-scarred trees from different collections over 30 years. Public domain.

Let’s zoom back in on the Southwest. There is a long history of tree-ring research here, with plentiful old trees, aged tree stumps, and remnant wood present in archaeological structures. Over the past 30 years, New Mexico researchers have built the largest tree-ring fire scar network for a single mountain range - the Jemez Mountains - in North America. The Jemez network currently includes 1,343 trees and 9,014 fire scars with these numbers ever-increasing. The Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab has many concurrent research projects across the Southwest in service of the overarching goal of researching the effects of climate variability on forest ecology, fire ecology, and ecohydrology. Locally, in the Jemez mountains, the lab is working to understand the area burned since 1600 CE over a 300,000-acre landscape. These fire reconstructions allow scientists to place the large fires of recent years into a historical context.

Tree Ring Analysis from Horseshoe Springs

Brent Bonwell cutting the cross section.

Shortly after the completion of a forest thinning treatment near Jemez Springs, Horseshoe Springs community member Brent Bonwell noticed that a large dead ponderosa pine had fallen, and upon closer observation he saw a well-defined fire scar at its base.  He wondered if it would be possible to learn about the fire history of the area by cutting a cross section from the tree and having the tree rings dated to determine exact years of fire events. The tree had seen more than the typical number of fire events in its lifetime, with 17 total scars recorded. 13 of the 17 fire events coincide with some of the largest fires recorded among other fire scar sampling sites in the Jemez Mountains. The tree showed no fires recorded after 1900, reflecting the systematic fire suppression that began at the turn of the 20th century. Read the full report written by Thomas Swetnam of the Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab.

Applying the science

How fire history guides our work with Fire Adapted Communities

Ponderosa Pine forest after thinning and burning.

The research being done at tree-ring labs across the world focuses on the interactions between humans, ecosystems, fire, and climate. Many studies are designed to inform forest and fire management decisions by enabling the comparison of our present fire regimes to centuries-long records and historic regimes. In populated areas where communities and their water supplies are potentially threatened by high-severity fires, science-management partnerships use tree ring research to guide land management decisions and goals, with a prime local example being the landscape-scale work of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition. Historical reference points provided by tree ring collections and data give managers examples of more resilient forest conditions and fire regimes. Managers can in turn work toward these ideal conditions when acting to restore forests and fire regimes and mitigate wildfire risk in our wildland-urban interface. Every little bit of ecologically-informed forest restoration, whether it's happening on thousands of acres of federal land or in your back yard, is a step in the direction of protecting communities, returning ecosystem functions and biodiversity, and addressing climate change.

Resources and Upcoming Opportunities

In-person Learning

Applications due October 15th: Fire Leadership For Women (FLFW) 20-Day Session

The National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center (NIPFTC) is hosting three training sessions for women in wildland fire management. Participants will experience 10 to 12 days of hands-on burning in complex situations such as wildland urban interface, various fuel types, and will work for several different agencies with unique management objectives. Participants will gain up-to-date knowledge on prescribed fire safety, prescribed fire planning, smoke screening tools, monitoring, and current fire policy.

January session: 01/07/2024 through 01/26/2024

February session: 02/11/2024 through 03/01/2024

March session: 03/10/2024 through 03/29/2024

October 26, 6:00pm, Taos, NM: Future Forests- Living with Fire

Join The Nature Conservancy for a conversation with a panel of experts to talk about the future of forests and how we can manage our forests better in New Mexico. TNC’s Forest and Watershed Health Manager Matt Piccarello will moderate this session that will include an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of the experts.

Webinars

FACNM Fall Webinar Series: Prescribed Fire in New Mexico

FACNM is hosting speakers from across the state (and the country) this autumn to talk about many different aspects of prescribed fire!

First up, join us on October 11th to hear Dr. Makoto Kelp present research that indicates that prescribed fire implemented in priority areas in the West may lower the likelihood and severity of future wildfire smoke during a joint FACNM-SWFSC webinar. Register Now!

On November 14, Dr. Tom Swetnam will discuss research showing that traditional Indigenous fire management may have interrupted the connection between climatic conditions and wildfire behavior at a local level.
To close the series, on December 7, Sam Berry and Brian Filip will discuss implementation of prescribed fire in the state of New Mexico, including the new Prescribed Burner Certification Program and All Hands All Lands. Download the flyer to learn more.

Keep an eye on the FACNM Events page for November and December webinar registration announcements!

Additional Reading and Resources

3 Things Outdoor Recreationists Need to Know About Wildfire — Outdoor Alliance article on how recreationists can support a more fire resilient future through education and support for policy reform.

WildfireSAFE provides simplified access to an advanced suite of fire weather and products to support fire management decisions. Visit the website to view weather & potential for wildfires across the nation. 



Wildfire Wednesdays #120: Recognizing Community Distinctness in Fire Adaptation and Preparation

REPOSTED to highlight upcoming resources and opportunities

Hello and happy Wednesday, FACNM community.

It may seem like common sense, but different communities perceive wildfire, wildfire risk, resilience actions, and personal wildfire risk differently. Even within a small town, individual neighborhoods likely vary wildly in their perception of and readiness for wildfire. As fires grow more extreme across the West and transition from wildlands to widespread house fires more often, effective implementation of wildfire preparedness strategies is becoming more important. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday provides information on the importance of tailoring fire prevention and preparedness messaging to individual communities to address their unique needs and barriers.

This Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

  • Resources and upcoming opportunities

  • How perceptions of fire risk vary across communities

  • The importance of tailoring fire education programming

Take care and enjoy the autumn equinox!
Rachel

Resources and Upcoming Opportunities

Funding opportunities

FACNM Microgrants Round 2 - Closes September 30!

The microgrant program from FACNM provides up to $2,000 for activities related to community fire preparedness, including community chipper days, educational events, meetings, public thinning demonstrations, and more! Applicants must be a FACNM Member or Leader (take 10 minutes to apply to join) and can apply for funding through a short Google Forms questionnaire. Learn more about the microgrant program and read about past recipients.

The Ready, Set, Go! Program, provided by the USDA and managed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, is accepting proposals from fire departments across the country to fund on-the-ground fuels reduction projects in communities. Eligible projects include Thinning, limbing, mastication; Grazing programs; Chipper days; Transfer of slash and fuels to a burn or disposal site; Development of a burn pad or debris collection site; and Defensible Space Projects. Applicants must be Ready, Set, Go! program members (join for free). Learn more about the funding opportunity.

In-person learning

September 30, 9:00am - 1:00pm, Ojitos Frios, NM: Living with Fire - Protecting your Home in the Next Fire
Querencia in Action is partnering with Luna Community College and New Mexico Forestry Division to present a free workshop on home hardening techniques such as pruning, limbing, tree thinning and creating Survivable Space. Click on the image to learn more.

October 26, 6:00pm, Taos, NM: Future Forests- Living with Fire
Join The Nature Conservancy for a conversation with a panel of experts to talk about the future of forests and how we can manage our forests better in New Mexico. TNC’s Forest and Watershed Health Manager Matt Piccarello will moderate this session that will include an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of the experts.

Webinars

FACNM Fall Webinar Series: Prescribed Fire in New Mexico
FACNM is hosting speakers from across the state (and the country) this autumn to talk about many different aspects of prescribed fire!

First up, join us on October 11th to hear Dr. Makoto Kelp present research that indicates that prescribed fire implemented in priority areas in the West may lower the likelihood and severity of future wildfire smoke during a joint FACNM-SWFSC webinar.
On November 14, Dr. Tom Swetnam will discuss research showing that traditional Indigenous fire management may have interrupted the connection between climatic conditions and wildfire behavior at a local level.
To close the series, on December 7, Sam Berry and Brian Filip will discuss implementation of prescribed fire in the state of New Mexico, including the new Prescribed Burner Certification Program and All Hands All Lands. Download the flyer to learn more.

Register for the October webinar or watch it live on Facebook, and keep an eye on the FACNM Events page for November and December webinar registration announcements!

Fire Risk: Perceptions and Preparedness

How risk perception varies across communities

(Note: much of the following comes from Actionable social science can guide community level wildfire solutions, a research article recently published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.)

Fire spreading between two story houses in a neighborhood at night

The Marshall Fire in Colorado; photo by RJ Sangosti via the Denver Post.

Devastation of communities due to wildfires is an important issue. Extreme wildfires, which have become more common in recent years, threaten the economic and social resilience of communities located in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) - where wildland fuels meet residential development. A wildfire with extreme behavior and impacts can destroy a high proportion of homes, associated infrastructure, and the social fabric of a community. As recent wildfires, such as the Lahaina fire in Maui, Hawaii, have shown, one critical aspect of WUI fire disasters is that they have the potential to become a home ignition problem - where the fire transitions from burning natural fuels such as grass and trees to burning human-built structures. These fires have the capacity to become mass conflagration events, with fire jumping from one house to the next.

Illustration of houses within one community but on different streets, circled in red to show that they are distinct from one another

Wildfire practitioners often know, based on their personal experience and knowledge of an area, that education efforts should be differentiated across the communities they serve. However, those tasked with getting in front of the problem by promoting mitigation and preparation rarely have the data they need to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Social research shows that WUI communities and their residents vary in their relationships to wildfire and their landscapes. While distinct communities, even if they are geographically close, may exhibit similar attitudes toward wildfire in general, there are often significant differences in their perception of community fire risk - and in the types of fire preparedness educational materials that are most effective in informing and motivating residents and homeowners to take action.

Even when clear guidelines about what residents can do to reduce the ignitability of their homes is presented, implementation of such guidelines is inconsistent across the WUI.

The importance of tailoring fire education programming

In places where mitigation of wildfire risk on private property is largely voluntary (such as Canada, the US, and Australia), community-based wildfire programs often play a key role in educating and motivating residents to mitigate risk. In addition to encouraging wildfire risk mitigation, these programs support residents’ efforts to prepare for a wildfire event through education, building social cohesion, and financial and logistical assistance with implementation.

Differences in fire perception amongst distinct communities mean that fire adaptation programs and community leaders who wish to enact meaningful change need to tailor wildfire preparation and mitigation programs to the local context. To customize the information shared with residents appropriately, program leaders first need to understand local perceptions of fire, such as what the community views as necessary or effective risk mitigation behaviors, common barriers to mitigation, and community communication preferences.

Two individuals holding pencils and pointing at a piece of paper between them

So, how do program managers and community leaders begin the process of understanding local perceptions, and from there craft outreach efforts, tangible assistance, and educational materials that speak to localized risk and needs? Community surveys, such as those conducted by WiRē – Wildfire Research, can provide locally scaled data to develop richer, more actionable insights for wildfire education programs. This type of social research seeks to measure how WUI residents engage with wildfire risk and often includes broad explorations of demographic characteristics, social profiles, and processes, including wildfire attitudes and perceptions, the role of social capital and adaptive capacity, and behaviors to mitigate fire risk.

Two hands holding puzzle pieces that fit together

When those in leadership positions have a baseline understanding of distinct communities, they can begin to identify gaps in preparedness and blind spots in community perception of risk, then develop programs that provide the resources to fill those gaps. Imagine that homeowners and residents in a neighborhood that abuts National Forest System lands view their wildfire risk as low, but fire managers or county fire department personnel perceive their risk as high due to the likelihood of spread from the forest to houses. Developing an understanding of that community perception provides a roadmap for program managers to tailor their approach by presenting facts about actual versus perceived risk and offering options to increase resilience within that specific community. At their core, local education efforts seek to align resident expectations, and subsequent resilience actions, with the perspectives of wildfire professionals.

Wildfire Wednesdays #119: Managed Wildfire

Hello, FACNM readers!

Fire has always played a dual role in our planet's natural landscapes - an elemental force of destruction and a harbinger of renewal. Yet, within the smoky depths of this paradox lies a method of intentionally engaging with wildfire that has been honed and utilized by traditional communities, natural resources practitioners, fire managers, and others for the better part of a century. This technique has gone by many names but is now commonly known as "managed wildfire." In this week’s Wildfire Wednesday, we explore this practice, tracing its evolution, illuminating its significance, and recognizing the persistent place fire as a tool has and the role it will continue to play in our modern world. This post is based on a recent science synthesis on managed wildfire from the Southwest Fire Science Consortium.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

  • The concept of “managed wildfire”

  • How managed wildfire has evolved

  • Present use and benefits

  • The intersection of managed wildfire and climate change

  • Other resources, including microgrant opportunities, webinars, and more

—Alyssa

Defining “Managed Wildfire”

What is the fire response strategy?

Image courtesy of istock

"Managed wildfire" is a strategy for responding to naturally ignited wildfires which refers to the deliberate use of wildfire as a land management tool to meet objectives such as firefighter safety, resource benefit, and community protection. This approach recognizes that many ecosystems have evolved with fire as a natural ecological process, essential for maintaining their health and biodiversity. By strategically permitting some wildfires to burn under moderate conditions with close monitoring and layered containment plans, land managers can achieve vital ecological and social safety goals which are otherwise daunting in their scale and need. Similar to prescribed fire, managed wildfires help reduce the buildup of dense underbrush, dead vegetation, and overgrown trees which can otherwise fuel catastrophic blazes. Managed fires introduce diversity, called heterogeneity, to fire-adapted forests. They often burn in a “mosaic” pattern, meaning that some areas will burn at low intensity while others burn a bit hotter with corresponding differences in fire impacts and residual forest density. This fire management technique promotes the regeneration of fire-adapted plant species, enhances habitat diversity for wildlife, and contributes to overall ecosystem resilience.

Figure courtesy of University of Washington: “Wildfires as fuel treatments – burn mosaics and wildfire management”

Embracing managed wildfire as a fire response strategy acknowledges the limitations and dangers of complete fire suppression: some fires which encounter forest conditions shaped by fire exclusion and an absence of land maintenance grow large, destructive, and dangerous to control, posing an elevated risk to firefighters, communities, and the environment. Balancing the art and science of fire management with the proven benefits of fire reintroduction offers a more sustainable and proactive way to mitigate future wildfire risks and live in fire-dependent landscapes.

Read more about wildfires as fuel treatments - burn mosaics and wildfire management.

Historical Use

Fire as an essential ecological process

Image courtesy of Josh Neufeld

Indigenous peoples across the globe have long been custodians of the land with practices and knowledge systems that incorporate fire as a fundamental element of land stewardship. In the West, indigenous communities coexisted with wildfire for centuries or millennia before Euro-American colonization. Fire has also been used intentionally to reenergize the land: promoting the growth of edible, medicinal, and materially useful plants; cultivating open landscapes for habitat diversity, grassland browse for wildlife species, and farmer settlements; fire hazard reduction around settled communities; and more.

Suppression as the default

Retardant drop in Carnuel, NM, 2022. Photo courtesy of Alex Poli.

By the 1890s, European settlement resulted in an emphasis on suppression of wildfires. This regard for fire as a destructive force which threatened resources is exemplified by the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, whose founding mission was wildfire suppression to safeguard lives, property, and valuable timber. Over the next century, full suppression became the preeminent response to wildfire, albeit with outliers. Technological advances, including the development of fire retardants, improved fire engines, and incorporation of firefighting aircraft, significantly enhanced the ability to actively combat wildfires. This approach, paired with climate change and drought, contributed to ecological imbalances that we are now seeing play out across our forested landscapes.

Unintended consequences of fire suppression:

  • Ecological Imbalances: over time, wildfire suppression has disrupted natural fire regimes in numerous ecosystems. Fire is an integral part of many landscapes, playing a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem health and diversity. The absence of regular, low- to moderate-intensity fire has led to the accumulation of fuel (called “fuel loading”) and shifts in vegetation composition.

  • Increased Fire Intensity: these ecological imbalances have contributed to larger and more intense wildfires when they do occur. This intensification can render firefighting efforts more challenging and costly.

  • Budgetary Constraints: the costs associated with wildfire suppression have soared, straining the Forest Service's budget and diverting resources from other critical programs, including forest management and conservation.

  • Loss of Fire-Adapted Ecosystems: fire-adapted ecosystems, such as grasslands, savannas, and specific forest types, have shrunk in extent (conversion to other ecotypes) or experienced character change due to fire exclusion.

Fuel loading provides ample resources for future fires to burn hotter, faster, and more intensely. The increased heat and rate of spread generated by such fires can make them difficult to control, posing a significant threat to both the natural environment and human communities. This cycle of fire suppression leading to fuel accumulation leading to catastrophic wildfires can become self-perpetuating. As large wildfires devastate the landscape, the impulse to suppress wildfires becomes stronger. These fires can also create even more favorable conditions for future fires, as dead and downed trees remain primed for future ignition and burned vegetation may not be able to recover as quickly, leaving behind a landscape that is more prone to reburning.

Reintroduction through policy

Federal policies have undergone significant evolution over the years as our understanding of fire ecology and land management practices has deepened. The concept of managed wildfire was introduced and implemented in California in the 1916, but political pushback ended the program after only three years. The National Park Service introduced managed wildfire, then called “natural prescribed fire” or “natural fire management”, to select parks for use the backcountry in the 1960s. A change in wildland fire behavior in the 1990s caused federal agencies to rethink their approach to fire management, and in 1995 the U.S. Forest Service updated their policies to create space for managed wildfire as a response strategy. The federal Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, in 2009, asserted that “fire, as a critical natural process, will be integrated into land and resource management plans and activities on a landscape scale, and across agency boundaries”, and the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy have since named managed wildfire as a legitimate approach to fire management.

Present Use

Aren’t we “managing” wildfire now?

Technically, yes, all wildfires are managed using a variety of response strategies. As specified by the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service in 2022, “every fire receives a strategic, risk-based response, commensurate with the threats and opportunities, and uses the full spectrum of management actions, that consider fire and fuel conditions, weather, values at risk, and resources available and that is in alignment with the applicable Land and Resource Management Plan.”

The shift in recent decades has been for the Forest Service and other land management agencies to acknowledge the importance of reincorporating fire into land management as an essential and natural ecological process. This is accomplished through prescribed burns and, when conditions are right and a natural ignition occurs in a suitable area, allowing some wildfires to burn without prioritizing full suppression as part of a managed wildfire approach. The goal of reintroduction, regardless of method, is the same: to harness the ecological benefits of fire while mitigating risks to communities, firefighters, and resources. This evolving approach represents a more holistic and sustainable way of responding to wildfires in the face of changing environmental conditions.

A little known but common response

While full suppression is still the primary fire response strategy for most agencies, especially during the hottest and driest months of the year, managed wildfires are a commonplace occurrence on the landscape. The combined footprint of managed wildfires in the western contiguous United States covers an average of 268,000 acres annually, and managed wildfire has been a dominant fire response strategy in Alaska. A strategy other than full suppression is chosen more often later in the season, usually starting after dangerous wildfires have been contained and when managers know that a significant precipitation is likely in the next six to eight weeks. Because managed wildfires generally burn under cool, moist, and moderate weather conditions, they tend to exhibit low- to moderate-fire severity. A managed wildfire strategy is also more likely to be implemented when the fire in question ignites far from communities or other values at risk, is likely to remain small based on natural barriers or containment features, and presents as less complex, requiring the involvement of fewer firefighting agencies and resources. Detailed case studies of managed wildfire found opportunities and obstacles to the strategy were “strongly shaped by local interagency and cross-jurisdictional contexts” such as federal, state, and local policy, Forest Plans, internal agency directives and culture, operational concerns, and real or perceived internal and public support for the strategy.

Benefits of managed fire

Reburns: in general, wildfire has a moderating effect on subsequent fires. Studies have found that in the ten years following a wildfire, subsequent fires experience reduced severity. This is true of managed wildfires, which generally burn under more moderate weather conditions and contribute to variable fire effects and surface fuel reduction that can mitigate future fire risk.
Forest structure: managed wildfires are effective at reducing tree densities, although perhaps not enough to return forests to historic conditions. Even repeat fire entries with predominantly low severity effects are not as effective for bolstering forest resilience as a single managed wildfire with moderate severity effects.
Waterways: in addition to mitigating effects on future wildfires and positive effects on forest structure, bringing fire back to fire-adapted forests benefits streams and rivers, promoting healthy water systems and reducing drought-induced tree mortality.
Cost: when and where wildfires can be managed for resource and community objectives, studies have demonstrated they likely cost less than full suppression wildfires. Additionally, where managed wildfires reduce fuels, they may also reduce the risk and cost of responding to future wildfires that burn through the same area.

Figure comparing Managed Wildfire to Full Suppression Fire from the 2023 Southwest Fire Science Consortium Fact Sheet “Managed Wildfire: One fire response strategy’s history and use”

Managed wildfires reengage the natural fire regimes that ecosystems evolved with, helping to reduce fuel loading, maintain biodiversity, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. By carefully planning and executing a managed wildfire, land managers can mitigate the long-term consequences of fire suppression policies, contributing to safer and healthier landscapes in the face of a changing climate.

Future Use

Facing the wildfire crisis

Increased management of wildfire for resource objectives will enlarge the area burned each year in the near term but will reduce the number of acres burned at high severity in the long term. Managed wildfire “can improve forest resilience and contribute to restoration efforts in fire-adapted forests,” but potential tradeoffs include increased smoke and declines in certain habitat types. Research comprehensively suggests that any long-term solution to the tremendous wildfire challenge facing communities and land managers across the western US will involve managed wildfire. Managing natural ignitions for resource and community benefit during moderate weather conditions offers hope for limiting future wildfire spread, reducing burn severity, and enhancing suppression effectiveness.

2016 Mormon Fire, Coconino National Forest. Photo courtesy of George Jozens, USDA Forest Service

An increase in the frequency and severity of managed wildfires will require careful risk management such as use of emerging fire modeling programs such as the Potential Operational Delineation (PODs) adaptive framework and clear communication with the public. Removing internal barriers, rethinking risk management, and reinvigorating the conversation around reintroduction of fire are logical and necessary next steps to increase utilization and facilitation of a restorative and cost-efficient forest management tool.

Managed fire and climate change

Incorporating the role of managed wildfires into the climate change resiliency conversation is crucial as we grapple with the far-reaching environmental transformations driven by climate change. These shifts encompass temperature variations, alterations in precipitation patterns, and increased frequencies and intensities of extreme weather events. These changes disrupt conventional ecological processes and render ecosystems more vulnerable to disturbances, including wildfires. As a result, understanding the significance of managed wildfires is pivotal in the context of climate change resilience. It underscores the dynamic nature of ecosystems and the necessity for flexible, responsive strategies. Raising public awareness about the ecological benefits of managed wildfires in the context of climate change resilience is equally vital. This can lead to greater support for burn programs and foster a broader understanding of the intricate relationship between fire, ecosystems, and climate change.

Other Resources

Grant opportunity

Photo from a green waste disposal event for the community of La Barbaria, made possible by Round 1 microgrant funding from FACNM.

Fire Adapted Communities NM is offering grants of up to $2,000 to network Leaders and Members seeking financial assistance for:

  • convening wildfire preparedness events,

  • enabling on-the-ground community fire risk mitigation work, or

  • grant proposal development to ensure the sustainable longevity of their Fire Adapted Community endeavor.

Proposals demonstrating community benefit or FAC capacity building are considered on a semi-annual basis; read about project successes funded by Spring 2023 - Round 1 microgrants. Grantees will be reimbursed for applicable expenses up to their awarded grant amount.

Webinars

Wednesday, 13 September at 12:00pm MDT: Grassification and Fast-Evolving Fire Connectivity and Risk in the Sonoran Desert
In the second webinar of a series on invasive grass-driven changes in dry desert systems, presenters will discuss their findings on fire dynamics in the 2020 Sonoran Desert Bighorn Fire near Tucson, AZ to better understand the changing nature of fire in desert systems which are increasingly experiencing conversion to grasslands.

Wednesday, 11 October at 12:00pm MDT: Prescribed Burns as a Tool to Mitigate Future Wildfire Smoke Exposure
Tune in for a webinar co-hosted by FACNM and the SW Fire Science Consortium! This presentation will introduce research on how targeted prescribed burn treatments in heavily forested Western states may have an outsized impact on improving air quality forecasts for the entire western U.S. by reducing the likelihood of future wildfire smoke.

Recent research

Planning for future fire resource needs: the Science You Can Use bulletin titled “Looking to the Past to Plan for Future Wildfire Response” focuses on how characterizing where firefighting personnel and equipment are coming from, both geographically and by managing agency, may help fire managers project how to fill future resource needs.

Giving Power to Communities for Fire Resilience: An Interview from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network dives into the importance of partnership, meaningful community engagement, and creating local intentional burn opportunities in order to foster community fire resilience.

Winter 2023 Microgrant Funding Opportunity

Winter 2023 Fire Adapted Communities grant funding: Apply now through September 30!

Calling all FACNM Members and Leaders

Do you have an interest in promoting and developing your community’s fire adapted practices?
Are you motivated to convene community events but need a little help?

FACNM is offering grants of up to $2,000 to Leaders and Members seeking financial assistance for:

  • convening wildfire preparedness events,

  • enabling on-the-ground community fire risk mitigation work, or

  • grant proposal development to ensure the sustainable longevity of their Fire Adapted Community endeavor.

Photo from a green waste disposal event for the community of La Barbaria, made possible by Round 1 microgrant funding from FACNM.

Proposals demonstrating community benefit or FAC capacity building are considered on a semi-annual basis; read about project successes funded by Spring 2023 - Round 1 microgrants. Grantees will be reimbursed for applicable expenses up to their awarded grant amount.

Grant reporting requirements include narrative (~500 words) and photo documentation of the event/work, documentation of community participation (if applicable), and possible creation of a FACNM blog post.

Round 2 proposals are due by 11:59pm Mountain Time on September 30, 2023. Grantees will have twelve months from the time of award to utilize the funds.

Not eligible? Become a FACNM Leader or Member today!

Meeting between the City of Santa Fe, Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition, and Wildfire Research (WiRe) to discuss the results of a multi-year resident fire awareness study, made possible by a microgrant from FACNM.

If you would like to apply for a FACNM microgrant but are not sure if you are eligible, read through our FACNM Membership Structure guide to determine where you fit in the network. To become a FACNM leader and receive first priority for funding opportunities, visit our Leaders webpage and apply today.

Wildfire Wednesdays #118: Southwest Fire Climate Adaptation Menu

Happy Wednesday, FACNM readers!

There are many organizations, entities, and companies who offer tools, templates, and guidelines to prepare for wildfire. We regularly cover these resources here in the blog, including a Fire Preparedness Day ‘Menu’ from the National Fire Protection Association, information about the Home Ignition Zone and Defensible Space, a video series called Seven Saturdays to a More Fire Resistant Home, and many more.

One aspect of these tools that is sometimes overlooked or under-investigated is climate change. This phenomena does and will continue to impact the likelihood, behavior, location, and severity of future wildfires, especially in the Southwest. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday addresses the parallels between climate readiness and Fire Adapted Communities as we dig into the Southwest Fire Menu, a product from Southwest FireCLIME: Research and Resources for Managing Fire in a Changing Climate.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

  • The Southwest Fire Menu basics

  • Useful tips and tricks to get started

  • How to get involved in the climate & fire conversation

  • Other resources and upcoming opportunities

Be well and stay fire safe as you enjoy the final month of summer!
Rachel

The Basics

An introduction to the Southwest Fire Menu

“Forests across the United States are expected to undergo numerous changes in response to the changing climate” write the authors of the second edition of Forest Adaptation Resources: climate change tools and approaches for land managers (2016). This paper, upon which the Southwest Fire Menu is based, “provides a collection of resources designed to help forest managers incorporate climate change considerations into management and devise adaptation tactics.”

From Forest Adaptation Resources: climate change tools and approaches for land managers, 2nd edition (2016) by Swanston, et al.

While the source publication details all five steps in the Climate Change Response Framework, including Define, Assess, Evaluate, and Monitor, the SW Fire Menu homes in on Identify: adaptation strategies and approaches for managing fire under future climate conditions. It is a product of Southwest FireCLIME, a regional initiative that applies the principles of science–management partnership and the co-production of knowledge to identify information needs related to climate-fire-ecosystem dynamics within the management community. Under the umbrella of Adaptation Strategies and Approaches, the Menu offers 10 ways that natural resources professionals can approach land management under an uncertain climate future.

The 10 strategies

Image courtesy of Lumen Learning: The Diversity of Life

  1. Sustain fire as a fundamental ecological process
    Returning fire to landscapes and cultures where it has been artificially excluded has been shown to have a variety of ecological and social benefits, including the reduction in future wildfire activity that is more likely to occur at undesired spatial scale or severity.

  2. Reduce biotic and abiotic stressors affecting fire regimes
    When biotic or abiotic stressors alter fuel regimes and fire risk, fire regimes can undergo drastic changes over short periods of time.

  3. Reduce the risk of unacceptable fire
    Unacceptable fires may be ecologically uncharacteristic, socially undesirable, or both. Generally, management actions taken to reduce the risk of unacceptable fire will be preventative as opposed to reactive.

  4. Limit the effects of unacceptable fire and promote post-fire recovery
    Fire regimes altered by climate change are more likely to result in fires that are considered unacceptable. Thus, preventative treatment (pre-fire) and active restoration (post-fire) are important considerations necessary for mitigating ecosystem effects and enhancing recovery.

  5. Maintain and enhance structural, community, and species diversity using fire and fuels treatments
    Promoting higher structural, community, and species diversity from the stand to landscape scale will increase the likelihood that some subset of species and vegetation communities will persist in the future.

  6. Identify, promote, and conserve fire- and climate change-adapted species and genotypes
    Conserving and promoting climate- and fire-resilient species and genotypes that are already present may allow a similar vegetation community to persist further into the future.

  7. Facilitate ecosystem adaptation to expected future climate and fire regimes
    Promoting species adapted to future conditions increases the likelihood that forests and other fire-adapted ecosystems will persist through or recover from increased fire disturbances and novel fire regimes, reducing the likelihood of undesirable vegetation type conversion.

  8. Use fire events as opportunities for ecosystem realignment
    The immediate aftermath of a disturbance provides a very practical window for realigning successional trajectories to expected future conditions instead of historical references.

  9. Promote organizational and operational flexibility
    Management organizations that are able to respond adaptively and creatively to changing fire regimes may be able to increase efficiency and successful outcomes of management actions.

  10. Promote fire-adapted human communities
    Individuals and communities have essential responsibilities within a climate adaptation framework, both in modifications to the physical environment and our collective understanding of challenges and solutions.

All 10 strategies are organized within a decision-making system commonly applied to management of post-fire landscapes called the R-A-D framework (Resist-Accept-Direct). Within the Menu, each strategy fits under one or more of these three concepts: Resistance, Resilience, and Transition.

Using the Menu

Tips and tricks to get started

The Menu is intended to be used as part of the Adaptation Workbook process developed by the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) and available online through the Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF). The Adaptation Workbook provides a structured yet flexible approach for integrating climate change into conservation and management projects. CCRF offers an implementation guide for both natural resources professionals and land trusts. These guides offer a short description and example for each step of the adaptation process, as described above. They are intended to be utilized in the beginning planning stages of a natural resources project, but are good to refer to at any point. A four-page set of worksheets at the end of the guide can be used to do a quick and easy exploration of adaptation for a small project area.

Tactics for implementation and examples of each of the 10 strategies outlined in the Fire Menu can be found on FireCLIME’s website as a dropdown for each individual strategy; additional examples and suggestions can be found in the parent paper’s Appendix A. Fire Menu with Example Tactics.

Get Involved in Climate and Fire Planning

Next steps to learn more

Housed under the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center at University of Arizona, the Southwest Fire and Climate Adaptation Partnership (SWFireCAP) is an open and inclusive group of partners with a shared vision for working together to advance fire and climate adaptation in the southwestern US. Their work is founded in the belief that the monumental task of effective climate adaptation requires cross-organization collaboration and leveraging of people, time, resources, and funding. Initiated by the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, the SWFireCAP now has several partner organizations and is open to anyone interested in the intersection of climate change and fire in the Southwest. The group offers research briefs, project summaries and publication, roundtables for targeted discussion (on-the-ground adaptation and cultural burning), workforce development fellowships, and more.

The SWFireCAP’s vision is “working together to advance fire and climate adaptation in the Southwest.” They are guided by the principles of inclusivity, cultural awareness, collaboration, evidence informed, consensus based, transparency, and collective impact.

Other Resources

Webinars

Wednesday, 13 September at 12:00pm MDT: Grassification and Fast-Evolving Fire Connectivity and Risk in the Sonoran Desert
In the second webinar of a series on invasive grass-driven changes in dry desert systems, presenters will discuss their findings on fire dynamics in the 2020 Sonoran Desert Bighorn Fire near Tucson, AZ to better understand the changing nature of fire in desert systems which are increasingly experiencing conversion to grasslands.

Wednesday, 11 October at 12:00pm MDT: Prescribed Burns as a Tool to Mitigate Future Wildfire Smoke Exposure
Tune in for a webinar co-hosted by FACNM and the SW Fire Science Consortium! This presentation will introduce research on how targeted prescribed burn treatments in heavily forested Western states may have an outsized impact on improving air quality forecasts for the entire western U.S. by reducing the likelihood of future wildfire smoke.

Local conferences

November 6-10, 2023: 6th National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Workshop
Read more and register now for this national gathering of fire management professionals working in in local, state, Tribal and federal agencies and organizations as well as non-governmental organizations and private companies! Hosted by the National Fire Leadership Council, the workshop will focus on peer-to-peer learning centered around a shared framework for the future.

Recent research

Home hazard assessments: the Science You Can Use bulletin titled “Sometimes Simple Works: The Value of Rapid Parcel-Level Wildfire Risk Assessments” focuses on how the rapid property assessments conducted by a Wildfire Research (WiRē) team for a Colorado neighborhood held up when the East Troublesome Fire burned through the area. WiRē has conducted assessments and public opinion surveys in the greater Santa Fe area, the results of which are expected to be released later this year.

Fire behavior in wildland versus prescribed fires: “Spot-Fire Distance Increases Disproportionately for Wildfires Compared to Prescribed Fires…” is based on work in the Loess Canyons Experimental Landscape in Nebraska. This research investigates how forest encroachment into grasslands drastically increases risks associated with wildfire, and how spot fire (embers from one fire causing a new fire ignition) distances associated with woody encroachment are much lower in prescribed fires used to control woody encroachment compared to wildfires.

Movie night

Rocky Mountain PBS aired the half-hour documentary “CO-Existing With Wildfire” in July 2023. It is now available to stream.  

Wildfire Wednesdays #117: Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program

Happy Wednesday, FACNM folks.

The Southwest’s delicate ecological balance is increasingly disrupted by the devastating force of high severity wildfires, wreaking havoc on landscapes, homes, and lives. In recent years, the frequency, intensity, and impact of wildfires have grown, highlighting the urgent need to implement effective mitigation strategies. The Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Program was introduced in 2022 as a tool to assist communities across the US grappling with a growing threat. This innovative initiative is about more than funding; it represents a united desire, from Washington D.C. to our own backdoors, to create and bolster resilience against the fires that threaten our homes and environment. In this week’s Wildfire Wednesday, we delve into the basics of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program, exploring its significance, objectives, and the transformative impact it aims to have on wildfire management.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • An introduction to CWDG

  • Round 1 awards and insights

  • Application tools & data

  • Round 2 announcement

  • Upcoming opportunities

-Alyssa

What is the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program?

An overview

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Program is a comprehensive approach to building community, ecological, and structural resilience and preparedness in the face of wildfires. Administered by the USDA Forest Service, this program stems from the recognition that safeguarding communities against wildfires requires a multifaceted strategy. It aims to empower local communities, organizations, and agencies to forge partnerships that foster cooperation and shared expertise in order to create and implement wildfire protection plans.

The primary objectives of CWDG are twofold: to enhance community preparedness and to mitigate wildfire risks. This is achieved through a range of focus areas that address different aspects of wildfire defense:

  1. Community Engagement: The program encourages active participation from residents, local authorities, and fire departments. By fostering a culture of collective responsibility, communities are better equipped to identify vulnerabilities and devise strategies for prevention, early detection, and evacuation.

  2. Fuels Reduction: One pivotal component of wildfire management is reducing the amount of flammable material that can serve as fuel for fires in both urban and rural areas. The grant program supports projects such as vegetation management, thinning, controlled burns, and creating defensible spaces around homes and critical infrastructure.

  3. Education and Outreach: Knowledge and a shared understanding of needs and objectives are the cornerstone of an effective wildfire defense. CWDG prioritizes educating communities about fire-safe practices, evacuation procedures, and the science of wildfires. Public awareness campaigns and workshops play a pivotal role in creating informed and prepared communities.

The CWDG initiative heralds a transformative shift in wildfire management. It nurtures collaboration among diverse stakeholders, blending traditional wisdom with current technological and scientific advancements. By focusing on both immediate action and long-term resilience, the program fosters a sense of ownership, ensuring that communities are not just recipients of assistance, but active participants in their own safety. 

Round 1: Autumn 2022

Awards and Insights

In a significant stride towards bolstering community wildfire resilience, the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program's inaugural funding round has yielded promising outcomes. A total of 100 projects have been approved for funding, with an impressive allocation of $197 million dedicated to these initiatives. The program's wide reach is evident, as it spans across 22 states and extends support to 7 tribes, fostering a collaborative approach to wildfire mitigation. Notably, within this diverse landscape of projects, New Mexico stood out with five applicants successfully securing funding. These projects include:

  1. Colfax Collaborative Wildland Urban Interface Project ($8.8 million)

  2. Flying Horse Ranch Fuel Break Project ($1.8 million)

  3. Exercise and Project Implementation of Community Wildfire Protection Plan ($235k)

  4. Sandoval CWPP Update ($63k)

  5. Community Wildfire Mitigation in the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed ($1.3 million)

Application tools & data

Assistance evaluating risk for Round 2 applicants

"Wildfire Risk to Communities" is a user-friendly website developed by the USDA Forest Service to aid communities in comprehending and decreasing their vulnerability to wildfires. This platform, established at the directive of Congress, offers interactive maps, charts, and resources to support informed decision-making. Utilizing the most up-to-date research insights, the website identifies and assesses wildfire vulnerability, equipping communities with the necessary tools to manage and mitigate these risks. The data used in the project is drawn from consistent sources like LANDFIRE for vegetation and fuels, the National Weather Service for weather information, and the U.S. Census Bureau for community data. Notably, wildfires and significant disturbances that happened after 2014 are not yet included in the data.

The website is primarily designed for community leaders such as elected officials, planners, and fire managers. It provides a broad perspective on risk across regions, states, and counties. While accessible for exploration online, the data can also be downloaded as GIS raster layers which enables more in-depth and personalized analysis. The website is intended to be used to compare risk among communities rather than within them and is not suitable for evaluating risk at the local, neighborhood, or individual home level.

An important feature is the CWDG tool, which allows users to specify a specific region or community and generate eligibility criteria data for their CWDG application. Applicants can cut and paste the risk information directly from the Wildfire Risk to Communities site into their application, increasing their likelihood to be selected for Round 2 funding by increasing their alignment with the application terms.

Workshop tips for applicants - recording available

In July 2023, FACNM and the New Mexico EMNRD Forestry Division held a series of workshops to assist potential Round 2 applicants with their proposals. Topics included:

  • Lessons Learned from Round 1

  • CWDG Process Updates

  • EMNRD Forestry Division Compliance, Procedures and Resources

  • Cycle 2 Application Review

A recording of one such workshop, held in Santa Fe, is available for viewing on the FACNM Facebook page.

Round 2: Summer 2023

Request for Proposals now open

The second round of CWDG Program funding is open for applications until October 31, 2023!

Eligible entities include local governments in wildfire-prone areas, Tribes, non-profit organizations, state forestry agencies, and Alaska Native Corporations. There are two proposal categories: 1) Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) Development/Revision, and 2) CWPP project implementation. Priority will be given to applications representing high-risk areas, low-income communities, and those impacted by recent disasters. Funding limits range from $250,000 to $10 million per project, with potential for up to $250 million in total funding. Funds matching is required, with waivers available for specific cases.

UPDATE: View FAC Net’s August 14 blog to learn more about Round 2, tips and tricks for your proposal, and how to apply!

Upcoming Opportunities

Webinars

  • 10 August at 12pm MDT: Monitoring and Removal of Invasive Grasses for Restoration of Dry Desert Systems.
    In this webinar, a panel of scientists and practitioners will discuss a number of management techniques and research questions being utilized or tested in an effort to reduce the presence of introduced grasses and restore the historic fire regime in dry desert systems such as the Sonoran. This information can be used to improve current practices and help develop new approaches to slow the invasive grass-fire cycle in the southwestern US.

Conferences

Wildfire Wednesdays #116: Seed Funding for Community Fire Preparedness

Happy Wednesday, FACNM readers!

Whether you’re a FACNM Leader, a seasoned FireWise community member, or are just learning about what it means to be fire adapted, figuring out where to start on the journey to community wildfire preparedness can feel pretty daunting. From the risk assessments to community organization to funding, there are a lot of details to work out.

In spring of 2023, FACNM began offering seed funding to FACNM Leaders and Members through a novel Microgrant Program. Individuals or Organizations could 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. In total, five applicants were chosen as award recipients and carried out a wide range of events, all of which aid in the development of Fire Adapted Communities.

Applications for a second round of funding for the FACNM Microgrant Program will be opening soon! To apply, ensure you are a registered FACNM Leader (click here to learn more) and visit the Microgrant webpage in mid-August to fill out the application form.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • Reports from the field: FACNM Microgrant success stories

  • Upcoming opportunities

Be well and stay cool,
Rachel

Reports from the Field: FACNM Microgrant Success Stories

Hazardous fuels removal - hauling and chipping:
The Overlook Homes Association and La Barbaria Canyon

In May, nineteen residents from The Overlook Homes Association and La Barbaria Canyon participated in their first annual National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. The event was jointly coordinated by Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition Ambassadors Ute Haker, Chris Schaum and Pam Ryan. Leading up to the Preparedness Day, community leaders engaged in educational outreach to other community members which focused on the concept of creating defensible space through vegetation removal, thinning, and home hardening.

The HOA received financial support from FACNM in the form of a Microgrant, as well as logistical support from Chris' Tree Service and the Forest Stewards Guild. Additional funding from Coalitions and Collaborative (COCO) AIM made it possible to offer residents, at no cost to them, both green slash disposal in a dumpster which was set on-site and slash chipping and hauling. The majority of material collected consisted of bagged needles, leaves and pinecones as well as ponderosa, pinion and juniper branches.

Participation between the two communities was evenly divided with a total of 4.25 tons of green waste collected over a period of 6 hours. All of the participants joined hands across the canyon in the true spirit of community to make this National Wildfire Preparedness Day a resounding success!   

Education and information exchange through in-person learning:
Wildfire Research Center (WiRē) and City of Santa Fe Fire

The City of Santa Fe Fire Department partnered with the Wildfire Research (WiRē) Center – a non-profit that works with wildfire practitioners across the western United States – to develop locally-tailored, evidence-based community wildfire education efforts so that communities can live with wildfire. Together, they conducted two data collection efforts: a rapid wildfire risk assessment of 965 residential properties, and a household survey sent to the owners of those same properties. The findings from this study are helping the City of Santa Fe Fire Department professionals better understand local wildfire risk and actions needed. These findings can also help residents know more about their property's risk and what actions they can take to reduce their risk.

WiRē Center was the recipient of a Fire Adapted Communities New Mexico (FACNM) Microgrant, which provided funding for space in which to hold in-person meetings with the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition and members of the Fireshed Ambassadors Program. In-person meetings enable more meaningful conversations among our collaborators, which leads to deeper understanding of the results of our project and how the data can be leveraged to inform programmatic improvements and more effective use of local resources. In the meetings supported by FACNM, WiRē presented on the results of our data collection efforts in Santa Fe to the Fireshed Coalition and its Fireshed Ambassadors tasked with public engagement, providing actionable information about wildfire mitigation.

These meetings were a catalyst for potential future projects. As a direct result of meeting with the Fireshed Coalition, they are considering a path toward a Fireshed-wide WiRē project. Some Fireshed Ambassadors expressed surprise at WiRē’s survey results and stated that those would inform how they interact with neighbors in the future. FACNM’s Microgrant support enabled the City to build momentum and generate ideas for how these data can be used to support wildfire adaptation in Santa Fe.

WUI fuels reduction demonstrations:
High Desert HOA - Fire Preparedness Committee

The Fire Preparedness (FP) Committee of the High Desert Residential Owners Association (HDROA) in Albuquerque, NM sponsored an education event through a unique and family-friendly hazardous fuel thinning demonstration in a communal arroyo comparing “goatscaping” with manual vegetation removal by landscapers. The goal of the project was to show how appropriate fuel reduction can be done to alter the path of a wildfire in a dense arroyo to protect homes. In 2018, the community experienced a 7-acre arroyo wildfire that engulfed everything in its path stopping only at residential property walls. Ten homes were damaged. The question was when, not if, we have another fire, how can the fire be directed to meet its combustion needs by protecting defensible spaces around homes and creating combustion sources away from homes.

High Desert received a Microgrant from FACNM with three goals in mind:
1. Secure approval from the City of Albuquerque to thin understory fuels in a 3-acre portion of the City Park.
2. Arrange an 8-hour period of goat and sheep grazing in a portion of the 3-acres, followed by 8 hours of manual fuel removal on another day for comparison.
3. Organize and publicize an educational event in the City’s Park with fire personnel and related environmental agencies for the High Desert residents that would allow direct interaction of the public with the animals and members of the FP Committee to explain the demonstration.

Approximately, two dozen community members attended the educational event. Officers of the HOA, ABQ Fire Rescue (AFR) Wildland Fire, FACNM, and ABQ Water Authority manned information tables and were on-site to answer questions. Lessons learned for both community members who attended the event and FP Committee Members included:

  • Goats do a great job of reducing fire risk where there are fine fuels like grasses, but do not change the fire behavior potential in arroyos dominated by shrubs and woody plants.

  • The paramount focus for fire preparedness of homes near arroyos needs to be fire hardening of the home within 0-6 feet of the exterior - in the Defensible Zone.

  • The secondary effort needs to be on reducing fuel in the Intermediate zone (6-30 feet) between a structure and the arroyo.

  • Into the Extended zone, 30-100 feet into the arroyos, reducing the available fuel and creating natural fuel breaks will change the fire behavior by slowing the movement of the fire and its intensity, thus also reducing embers.

Learn more about creating defensible space around your home in Wildfire Wednesdays #109 and #109B.

CWPP updates:
Cimarron Watershed Alliance, Inc.

The Cimarron Watershed Alliance, Inc. (CWA) is a collaborative watershed stakeholder nonprofit based in Colfax County, NM. CWA’s mission is “to strive for and maintain a healthy watershed for all residents through collaborative community activities involving all stakeholders with an interest in water”. 

In line with their mission, CWA led the effort to develop the first Colfax County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) in 2008 as well as the subsequent Update in 2022. In late 2022, members of CWA identified gaps in, and a subsequent need for updates to, the 2022 Colfax County CWPP, particularly in regard to pre-identifying fuels reduction projects.

In early 2023, CWA received a FACNM Microgrant to support this 2023 CWPP update effort in the form of two Colfax CWPP meetings in Cimarron and Eagle Nest.  The Microgrant provided food for the meetings as well as technical advisory support from the Forest Stewards Guild for the updates themselves.

Representatives from the County, state and federal agencies, local landowners and managers, municipalities, and NGOs were in attendance at both meetings. Attendees were able to share and discuss their high priority projects and projects that are on the properties they manage or that directly affect them.  They were also able to collaboratively discuss projects that were a high priority within the county, those that affected everyone. In the end, CWA was able to come away with a larger list of wildfire protection priorities and projects within the County.  

Defensible Space Slash Disposal and Community Chipper Day:
Taos Pines Ranch

Cut green waste was hauled by residents to the side of the road prior to the chipper day to be processed by Wood Sharks, LLC.

Taos Pines Ranch is a 1,200-acre high elevation Firewise subdivision with 98 lots in Northern New Mexico that shares borders with Carson National Forest, Taos Pueblo, and some private land. In years prior, Colfax County provided an industrial chipper and a crew to chip resident-produced slash which is hauled to the edge of their 9 miles of road. The County discontinued this free service in 2023 due to lack of staffing. Residents, motivated to create defensible space around their homes following 2022’s devastating wildfires, had to look into other options.

Chipped green waste along the road leading through Taos Pines Ranch after a free-to-the-community slash hauling and chipper day.

Taos Pines requested and received a $2,000 microgrant from FACNM to contract an identical service from Wood Sharks, LLC. The community’s Firewise Committee alerted residents by sending chipper dates in a group email and posting on their Facebook Message Board.

All together, the community hauled out estimated 1,200 cubic ft. of slash produced by defensible space thinning. 70% of Taos Pines Ranch lots are fully or partially thinned, although the community hopes to bolster this number. In the future, over 1/5th of lot owners have expressed interest in working with the Cimmaron Watershed Alliance to create defensible space as part of that group’s USFS Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) award.

Upcoming Opportunities

Webinars

  • 10 August at 12pm MDT: Monitoring and Removal of Invasive Grasses for Restoration of Dry Desert Systems.
    In this webinar, a panel of scientists and practitioners will discuss a number of management techniques and research questions being utilized or tested in an effort to reduce the presence of introduced grasses and restore the historic fire regime in dry desert systems such as the Sonoran. This information can be used to improve current practices and help develop new approaches to slow the invasive grass-fire cycle in the southwestern US.

Conferences

  • 15-17 April 2024: After The Flames in-person conference and workshop
    A first-of-its-kind Conference and Workshop devoted to post-fire recovery. Attendees will represent individuals, organizations, and agencies impacted by wildfire and responding to the post-fire impacts, as well as experts in the arena of post-fire recovery. Sign up for Coalitions & Collaboratives’ newsletter to stay up-to-date on conference details. 

Learning Exchange: Field Tours

  • 26-28 September 2023: Stewardship in Action - A Tribe’s Nature-based Approach to Watershed Restoration
    The Natural Areas Association (NAA) is hosting a Stewardship in Action Field Workshop in Espanola, New Mexico on the lands of the Santa Clara Pueblo. It will highlight an innovative and iconic case study in public and private collaboration on sovereign tribal lands following a series of catastrophic wildfires. Learn more by visiting FACNM’s Events page.

Local Job Opportunities

  • Luna Community College: Director of Wildfire Resiliency Training Center
    Wildfires are growing worse every year - both bigger and more frequent. To combat the devastation, we need more people with the skills and expertise to mitigate the dangers and implement recovery for lands, forests, water and communities. Luna Community College is opening a Wildfire Resiliency Training Center. Apply for the Wildfire Resiliency Training Center Director position by contacting Dr. Day at 505-454-5378 to discuss the Center and the position in greater detail.

Wildfire Wednesdays #115: Sources of up-to-date wildfire information

Howdy, FAC NM Folks:

The crackling of dry leaves underfoot echoes through the forest, accompanied by the distant rumble of thunder. The smell of smoke wafts on the breeze, a stark reminder of the potential danger lurking just beyond the trees…

In the face of wildfires, staying informed could mean the difference between escape and chaos. In this week’s Wildfire Wednesday, our newest blog contributor, Alyssa, will showcase how to stay up to date with the ever-changing wildfire landscape. From technology-driven solutions to the power of community engagement, we delve into the strategies and resources available to ensure that, in the face of uncertainty, we remain connected, informed, and prepared.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  •  Emergency Alerts

  • NMFireInfo

  • InciWeb

  • Fire Restrictions map

Emergency Alerts

Text & email emergency alerts are common across the US. One example, in Santa Fe, is the Alert Santa Fe notification system: this is a comprehensive communication system implemented in the city of Santa Fe, designed to quickly and effectively deliver important information to residents and visitors. It aims to enhance public safety and provide critical updates during emergencies, severe weather conditions, and other significant events. The system utilizes various communication channels to reach a wide audience, including mobile devices, landlines, email, social media platforms, and outdoor warning sirens.

The Alert Santa Fe system allows users to register their contact information, preferences, and geographic locations to receive tailored notifications based on their specific needs and interests. This customization ensures that individuals only receive relevant alerts pertaining to their area of interest or potential hazards. The system can issue alerts related to emergencies such as wildfires, floods, hazardous material incidents, and public health emergencies. It can also provide information about traffic disruptions, utility outages, and community events.

Through the mobile application or web portal, users can receive real-time alerts, view interactive maps with incident locations, and access additional resources and instructions during emergencies. The system leverages the latest technology to deliver notifications rapidly, ensuring that residents stay informed and can take appropriate actions to protect themselves and their loved ones.

Contact your local fire department for more information on local and county alert systems in your area.

 

NMFireInfo

The NMFireInfo website is a dedicated online platform that provides information about wildfires and other fire-related incidents in the state of New Mexico. It serves as a central hub for sharing up-to-date information, news updates, and resources related to fire incidents and fire management efforts.

Managed by various agencies and organizations involved in fire management, including federal, state, and local entities, the NMFireInfo website offers a comprehensive overview of fire incidents occurring within New Mexico. The website provides detailed information on the location of fires, fire size, containment status, and any evacuation notices or road closures in effect.

In addition to incident-specific updates, the website offers resources and educational materials to help residents and visitors understand fire prevention, preparedness, and safety. It provides guidelines on creating defensible space, fire restrictions, and other measures to mitigate the risk of wildfires.

The NMFireInfo website serves as an essential communication tool, allowing incident management teams to share information with the public, media outlets, and other stakeholders. By providing timely and accurate information, the website helps promote public safety and awareness during fire incidents.

 

InciWeb

InciWeb is an online incident information system that provides comprehensive and up-to-date information about wildfires, prescribed burns, and other incidents in the United States. It serves as a centralized platform for sharing incident-related data, including fire status, containment efforts, evacuation notices, and resource management.

Managed by the U.S. Forest Service, InciWeb offers a user-friendly interface where incident management teams, government agencies, and the public can access detailed information about ongoing incidents. The platform features incident-specific pages that contain maps, news updates, photos, videos, and other resources related to the incident.

InciWeb plays a vital role in facilitating communication and coordination among various agencies involved in incident response, including federal, state, tribal, and local organizations. It serves as a valuable tool for incident commanders to share situational awareness with stakeholders, media outlets, and the public, ensuring transparency and promoting safety.

By providing real-time information on fire behavior, containment strategies, road closures, and evacuations, InciWeb helps residents and visitors make informed decisions regarding their safety and well-being. It also serves as a repository of historical incident data, allowing researchers, analysts, and emergency management professionals to study and learn from past incidents.

 

Fire Restrictions map

The Southwest Area Fire Restrictions website is an online platform that provides information on fire restrictions and related regulations in the Southwest region of the United States. The website serves as a central resource for accessing up-to-date information about fire restrictions, closures, and other regulations implemented by federal, state, tribal, and local agencies.

Managed by fire management authorities in the Southwest Area, which includes states like Arizona, New Mexico, and portions of Texas and Oklahoma, the Fire Restrictions offers a user-friendly interface that allows visitors to access the latest information regarding fire restrictions in specific locations.

The website provides a comprehensive overview of current fire restrictions, including details about prohibited activities, such as campfires, outdoor burning, and the use of fireworks. It also highlights any specific regulations or closures in effect for national parks, forests, and other public lands.

Through interactive maps and search functionalities, users can navigate the website to find information relevant to their desired location. The dashboard includes additional resources, such as fire prevention tips, educational materials, and links to local fire management agencies for further guidance.

The Southwest Area Fire Restrictions website plays a crucial role in promoting fire safety and prevention by providing accurate and updated information to the public, recreational users, and land managers. It helps ensure compliance with fire restrictions, reduces the risk of human-caused wildfires, and supports the effective management of fire-prone areas in the Southwest.

Staying up to date on wildfire information empowers individuals and communities to take proactive measures, collaborate with authorities, and contribute to mitigating the devastating impacts of wildfires.

Upcoming Events and Learning Opportunities

Workshops

July 17 and 21, 2023: Community Wildfire Defense Grant Workshops

NM EMNRD - Forestry Division will hold two workshops to help potential CWDG grant applicants review the lessons learned from the first cycle of this program and learn about changes to current processes. This workshop is intended to help strengthen applications in real time, whether applications submitted in the first round did not get funded or individuals are still thinking about submitting an application. Participants should bring their latest revision of their application for review or their project ideas which have not yet been fleshed out into an application so Forestry Division can provide direction and helpful tips for success. 
If you are unable to attend either of the in-person meetings and would like to have your application reviewed, you can reach out to Abigail Plecki, Community Wildfire Defense Grant Coordinator, and set up a time to meet virtually (505-231-3086 | abigail.plecki@emnrd.nm.gov).   

To join online on the 17th, click here.

To join online on the 21st, click here.

Webinars

July 25, 2023, 12:00-1:00pm: Increasing Post-Wildfire Planted Seedling Survival
Join the Southwest Fire Science Consortium as Chris Marsh with UNM’s Earth Systems Ecology Lab discusses how consideration of climate trends, microclimatic conditions, topography, and local vegetation influence planted seedling survival and can be used to guide reforestation planning in the Southwest.

Resources in the News

Following the East Coast’s inundation of wildfire smoke from blazes burning in Canada, National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on lessons from the West for dealing with wildfire smoke. While this may be old news to many, the refresher is always worthwhile.
Read it here.

Wildfire Wednesdays #114: The Importance of Returning Fire to the Landscape

Happy Wednesday, and happy official start of summer, FAC NM community!

Our last Wildfire Wednesday issue, #113, introduced the idea of building landscape resilience (ability of the land to maintain ecological function after a disturbance) through large-scale collaborative land management projects. A common theme was that land managers use forestry treatments such as thinning and prescribed fire to support landscape resilience by creating a diversity of forest structures on the landscape. Local research has shown, time and again, that using targeted forest thinning followed by the intentional return of fire to treat an overly thick and unhealthy forest is the most effective combination for establishing landscape resilience in fire adapted ecosystems. Prescribed burning is a key element in guiding watersheds and forests to be more diverse in species, age, and spacing, and better prepared for wildfire, pests, disease, and other disturbances.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

  • A review of the use of intentional fire

  • Success stories in your backyard

  • Upcoming events and announcements

Take care,

Rachel

Use of Intentional Fire

A natural history

Many forests across North America but especially in the West “grew up” with fire. Over hundreds of thousands of years, as these landscapes formed, fire was present and endemic plants and animals evolved to be resilient to wildfire (or in some cases, to require it for their reproduction and survival). We refer to these ecotypes as fire adapted forests.

Cartoon drawing of a smiling tree hugging flames licking against its trunk

Communities of the Southwest have, in the past, been fire adapted as well. As we discussed in Wildfire Wednesdays #107, humans and our ancestors have been intentionally using fire for more than 400,000 years. Indigenous communities around the world have used fire in ceremony and management of hunting and plant cultivation, and Euro-American colonizer-settlers used fire to clear land around their communities. This use of fire, mimicking or working in tandem with naturally ignited wildfires, kept forests relatively thin and diverse with a mosaic of open meadows, thick groups of trees in drainages and other topographic features which acted as refugia, and less dense forest along slopes and ridgetops. Fire also maintained a diversity of tree ages and plants which grew under the forest canopy or along streams and rivers.

Smokey Bear poster with a fire blazing in the background, Smokey holding a hurt deer fawn, and the words " our most shameful waste" in bold black letters

After a century of treating forests as a commodity which needed to be protected from “bad” fire, including demonizing and sometimes criminalizing indigenous and other traditional use of fire, folks across the West have begun to reevaluate this relationship. While farmers and ranchers more or less continually used fire to maintain their land, even when fire suppression was the national policy, it wasn’t until the late 1900s to early 2000s that we saw the reintroduction of fire to forested environments through prescribed and cultural burning. Ryan, Knapp, and Varner (2013) write:

“In North America, recognition of the ecological benefits of prescribed burning was slow in coming and varied geographically. Fuel accumulation and loss of upland game habitat occurred especially quickly in productive southern pine forests and woodlands and ecologists in the southeastern US promoted the use of fire in land management from early on. In spite of their convincing arguments, fire in the southeastern US (and elsewhere) was still frequently viewed as incompatible with timber production due to the potential for injury to mature trees and the inevitable loss of tree seedlings.”

Reclaiming our relationship to fire

Scientific, managerial, and, to an extent, public perception has shifted dramatically over the past 20+ years as we have come to understand what many before us inherently knew: that fire is an integral process for maintaining the integrity, stability and beauty of our biotic communities.

Figure adapted from Tenya et al., 2019

Burning small and burning often in a way which restores forest heterogeneity (diversity of species, age, and type) effectively reduces the density and connectivity of trees within forests and the prevalence of dense forests across landscape. This in turn reduces the severity of subsequent wildfires and makes them easier to manage.

An annual average of 6+ million acres are treated in the U.S. using prescribed fire. According to New Mexico’s 2020 Forest Action Plan, “nearly 5 million acres of forested land need treatment — thinning, prescribed burns or weed management — on a rotating cycle to create resilience to fire. That works out to 300,000 acres a year, a target that the state isn’t even close to reaching” (Searchlight NM, 2022). Despite the challenges and risks, prescribed fire and other means of reintroducing fire to the landscape will need to be part of the solution to this backlog.

Success Stories Close to Home

The Zuni Mountain Collaborative

This story comes to FAC NM from US Forest Service employee Shawn Martin, Silviculturist with the Cibola National Forest.

Map of the Zuni Mountains Landscape with US Forest Service managed lands highlighted in green.

Where it began
Toward the end of the 1990’s, the Cibola National Forest (CNF) and its partners began to take more interest in managing the Zuni Mountains area as a cohesive landscape. Beginning in 1999, the Forest implemented several projects clocking in at a few hundred acres - the Bluewater Creek Improvement Project, followed by the Bluewater Creek Restoration Project and Bluewater Road Realignment in 2002. Between 2001 and 2003, CNF and Pueblos of Acoma and Zuni applied for and received three Collaborative Forest Restoration Project (CFRP) grants; the Forest Stewards Guild and Mt. Taylor Manufacturing received two more CFRP grants in 2009 and 2010 focused on capacity building, increased forest restoration, and wood utilization.

Cartoon rainbow colored human figures sit around a table holding different colored puzzle pieces

An integral requirement of these federal grants is collaborating with external partners - with members of nearby communities, local nonprofits and businesses, and various landowners or managers in the area - while planning and implementing the funded forest restoration project. Years later, in 2011, when the landscape applied for a long-term Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) grant for the Zuni Mountains, these same concepts necessitating collaboration and cooperation would apply. The Zuni Mountains Collaborative was eventually formed to provide a forum in which a variety of partners and collaborators could meet and work together.

Scaling up
Over the next few years, wildfires across the Southwest and in the landscape, such as the 2004 Sedgwick Fire, began burning hotter, longer, and more acres. These events reinforced the need to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration treatments, invest in ways to utilize wood and establish a forest restoration economy, and create fuelbreaks to protect nearby communities from wildfire. The CNF began surveying larger and larger chunks of land to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and funding through the American Restoration and Recovery Act created a new instrument to implement forest restoration activities. Following receipt of 10-year CFLRP funding in 2012, low-intensity prescribed fire was reintroduced with the implementation of the Carbon, Fossil, and Copperton burns.

Map of mechanical treatment in zuni mountains with blue and yellow blocks representing different NEPA decisions and blue and green blocks representing completed thinning treatments scattered throughout

Map showing the landscape approach to mechanical thinning in the Zuni Mountains. Thinning began in the southeast portion of the CFLRP boundary (in red), chosen due to ease of access and proximity to the communities of Grants, Thorough, and more.

Map of fire treatment in zuni mountains with blue and yellow blocks representing different NEPA decisions and orange and red blocks representing completed prescribed burns scattered throughout

Map showing the landscape approach to prescribed burning in the Zuni Mountains. Prescribed fire generally followed mechanical thinning by a few years, reducing the amount of dead woody material on the ground which is generated by this thinning. In the mid 2010s, firelighters began to increase the size of their burn blocks to treat larger areas.

Prioritizing fire
The 2020 Puerco NEPA decision expanded restoration opportunities beyond just thinning burning to include watershed, wildlife, and range improvements.  Treatments have always been prioritized around building and maintaining a restoration economy, so most thinning has been centered around treating overstocked and even-aged stands that were easily accessible and economically feasible for the MTM mill.  Prescribed fire has generally followed behind forest thinning, but large areas which are either inaccessible for mechanical thinning (wilderness, far from a road, thinning would be too expensive) or are already prepared for the reintroduction of fire (previously thinned or burned, did not experience the same level of historic fire exclusion) have been identified as “burn only”. 

A Forest Stewards Youth Corps crew member lights low-intensity fire during a fall 2021 prescribed burn in the Zuni Mountains Copperton burn unit.

In prioritizing which areas to treat with prescribed fire, managers first considered existing mechanical thinning project plans which they could follow with fire as a secondary treatment. The next logical step in prioritizing prescribed fire treatments was to work out from or expand on that foothold of initial burns. Land managers knew that, in this part of the Southwest, the dominant wind (direction in which the wind blows the majority of the time, having to do with larger atmospheric patterns) came out of the southwest and blew to the northeast. The CNF designed the next decade of treatments, therefore, to a) follow existing road systems for ease of access and b) create a “catcher’s mitt” of restored forest which was treated by thinning and/or prescribed fire and could intercept a wildfire, stopping its forward progress or reducing its severity before it burns into nearby communities to the northeast. Such treatments have proven efficacy, such as the 2013 Rim Fire on the Stanislaus National Forest, just east of California’s Yosemite National Park.

“Even if a previous fire doesn’t stop the subsequent fire, [research] shows that areas recently burned by low to moderate severity fire re-burned at similarly low to moderate severity… In this way, each new reduced severity fire becomes a potential anchor that could be used to limit the spread, moderate severity, and potentially lower the daily smoke emissions of a subsequent fire.”

- Dr. Leland Tarnay, FAC Learning Network, 2018

Medio Fire, 2020

In late August 2020, treatments associated with the Pacheco Canyon Forest Resiliency Project played a consequential role in mitigating the forward progress of the Medio Wildfire burning in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 11 miles northeast of Santa Fe, NM. These treatments, especially prescribed burns adjacent to a historic fire scar, contained the wildfire and prevented it from burning into and devastating the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed (the source of up to 40% of Santa Fe’s drinking water). Visit the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition webpage or click on the factsheet or video below to learn more about this success story.

Midnight Fire, 2022

The Midnight Fire burned through a section of the Carson National Forest near El Rito in June, 2022. Fire crews and incident commanders feared that the blaze could grow as big or fast as nearby fires (this was burning at the same time as the Hermit’s Peak - Calf Canyon Complex), but previous prescribed burn projects and managed fires helped stymy its forward progress and reduce the burn severity. The region's previous fire and forest thinning acted as "building blocks" to slow the Midnight Fire. Click the image to the right to read more about this success story in a September article by the Albuquerque Journal.

Upcoming Events and Learning Opportunities

Workshops

July 17 and 21, 2023: Community Wildfire Defense Grant Workshops

NM EMNRD - Forestry Division will hold two workshops to help potential CWDG grant applicants review the lessons learned from the first cycle of this program and learn about changes to current processes. This workshop is intended to help strengthen applications in real time, whether applications submitted in the first round did not get funded or individuals are still thinking about submitting an application. Participants should bring their latest revision of their application for review or their project ideas which have not yet been fleshed out into an application so Forestry Division can provide direction and helpful tips for success. 
If you are unable to attend either of the in-person meetings and would like to have your application reviewed, you can reach out to Abigail Plecki, Community Wildfire Defense Grant Coordinator, and set up a time to meet virtually (505-231-3086 | abigail.plecki@emnrd.nm.gov).   

Webinars

July 25, 2023, 12:00-1:00pm: Increasing Post-Wildfire Planted Seedling Survival
Join the Southwest Fire Science Consortium as Chris Marsh with UNM’s Earth Systems Ecology Lab discusses how consideration of climate trends, microclimatic conditions, topography, and local vegetation influence planted seedling survival and can be used to guide reforestation planning in the Southwest.

Resources in the News

Following the East Coast’s inundation of wildfire smoke from blazes burning in Canada, National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on lessons from the West for dealing with wildfire smoke. While this may be old news to many, the refresher is always worthwhile.
Read it here.

Wildfire Wednesdays #113: Landscape Resilience

Hi FACNM community,

The mix of fire effects that we see on the landscape contribute to it’s resiliency - the ability of the forest to “bounce back,” or sustain ecological functions, despite a disturbance. For example, when we see large areas that burn at high severity (high mortality of trees), natural regeneration of the forest becomes challenging, we have to consider more expensive replanting efforts, and we may lose the forested headwaters that provide water to our arid landscape.

To support landscape resilience. land managers use forestry treatments like thinning and prescribed fire to create a diversity of forest structures on the landscape. This diversity of forest structures contributes to a mixed pattern of fire effects when we do see wildfire. Through this variation in forest structures across the landscape, we begin to see a “mosaic” of treated and un-treated areas that can help protect our forests from widespread mortality when we have natural or human-ignited wildfires.

There are many landscape resilience projects happening across the state. This Wildfire Wednesday will feature some (but not all) of the important landscape-scale projects that are helping to protect the future of our forests and watersheds, including:

  • The Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project

  • The Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP)

Best,
Gabe

Landscape Resilience Projects

A map from the 2020 NM Forest Action Plan showing 250 of the highest priority watersheds for landscape resilience projects. These watersheds are at the HUC 12 scale (~10,000 - 40,000 acres).

What are they?

Landscape Scale Restoration projects cross multiple jurisdictions, including Tribal, state and local government, and private forest land, to address large-scale issues such as wildfire risk reduction, watershed protection and restoration, and the spread of invasive species, insect infestation and disease. Projects are developed in partnership with diverse stakeholders and effectively leverage local knowledge, expertise, and resources which results in measurable on-the-ground impacts.

"Landscape scale" does not merely mean acting at a bigger scale: it means conservation is carried out at the correct scale and that it takes into account the human elements of the landscape, both past and present. For many of the projects in New Mexico, our definitions of landscape-scale are closely linked to water - often using watersheds of various sizes or larger river drainage basins.

The Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resilience Project

Project Status

Signing of the SFMLRP environmental assessment - May 18th, 2023

Surrounded by State, Tribal, and Local partners Thursday, Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) Supervisor Shaun Sanchez and Acting Deputy Forest Supervisor Jeremy Marshall finalized and signed the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project (SFMLRP) environmental assessment on Thursday, May 18th, 2023.

Context

The SFMLRP is a 10-year restoration project with actions focused on helping the ponderosa pine and frequent-fire mixed conifer landscapes near New Mexico’s capital city increase resiliency to threats like high-severity wildfire, insects and disease infestation, and climate change. The SFMLRP spans approximately 50,000 acre area, although not all of the area within the project boundary will receive treatment.

Goals

The purpose of the Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project is to increase the resilience of a priority landscape to future disturbances such as high-severity wildfire, drought, and insect and disease outbreaks. Resilience is the “ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbance while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change” (Forest Service Manual 2020.5). This purpose would primarily be accomplished by restoring characteristic structure, function, composition, and spatial pattern to the ponderosa pine and dry mixed conifer forests that comprise much of this landscape. A critical component of improving resilience in the Project Area is creating conditions that facilitate the safe reintroduction of fire, a keystone ecological process, across this landscape.

To increase the resilience of the forests, watersheds, and communities of the Santa Fe Fireshed, The SFMLRP will:

  • Move forests and woodlands (including ponderosa pine, dry mixed conifer, aspen, and piñon-juniper) in the Project Area towards their characteristic species composition, structure and spatial patterns in order to improve ecological function;

  • reduce the risk for high-severity wildfire, create safe, defensible zones for firefighters in areas of continuous fuels and near valued resources that are at risk, and avoid negative post-fire impacts;

  • improve the diversity and quality of habitat for wildlife; and

  • improve soil and watershed conditions.

To stay informed about the status of this project, you can visit the Project website.

The Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP)

Project Status

A map of the Rio Chama CFLRP landscape.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2022, forests and meeting spaces throughout northern New Mexico and southern Colorado were filled with discussion surrounding the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). Funding for the Rio Chama CFLRP was announced in April of 2022 and the project is underway.

Context

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), enabled by Congress, is designed to increase the resiliency of forests and watersheds in priority forests across the U.S.

A bend in the Rio Chama river in the Fall.

The Rio Chama CFLRP provides $30 million in funding over ten years. While the funds from the Forest Service are reserved for federal land, the project is intended to address all lands; private, state, and federal. The federal dollars are leveraged to secure funding for cross-boundary work which is facilitated by a local collaborative group, called the 2-3-2 partnership.

The project covers 3.77 million acres across the region and will provide funding over a 10-year period. The project aims to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire, restore natural fire patterns, improve watershed resilience and health, and enhance the economic sustainability of industries in the region.

Goals

The project aims to reduce uncharacteristic wildfire risk by decreasing tree densities and restoring fire regimes to fire-adapted landscapes where low-intensity and mixed-severity fire were prevalent prior fire suppression policy. The suppression and absence of fire in forests of the American Southwest since approximately the 1880s has allowed our forests to become unnaturally dense, which often leads to uncharacteristically intense fire. This wildfire risk has become amplified by climate change. The CFLRP investment is focused on this landscape due to its high priority for water, wildlife, streams and community values.

  • Increase the forest resilience to disturbances like wildfire, insects, disease, and climate change

  • Restore watershed and riparian areas to improve water quality and watershed function

  • Improve range conditions and wildlife habitat and connectivity

  • Support local rural economies and create jobs by utilizing restoration byproducts

  • Connect with tribal, land grant and acequia communities, and engaging youth in public land management