Details from New Mexico's lawsuit against Snap show site failed to act on reports of sextortion — Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer
Snapchat failed to act on "rampant" reports of child grooming, sextortion and other dangers to minors on its platform, according to a newly unredacted complaint against the company filed by New Mexico's attorney general.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed the original complaint on Sept. 4, but internal messages and other details were heavily redacted. Tuesday's filing unveils internal messages among Snap Inc. employees and executives that provide "further confirmation that Snapchat's harmful design features create an environment that fosters sextortion, sexual abuse and unwanted contact from adults to minors," Torrez said in a news release.
For instance, former trust and safety employees complained there was "pushback" from management when they tried to add safety mechanisms, according to the lawsuit. Employees also noted that user reports on grooming and sextortion — persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors — were falling through the cracks. At one point, an account remained active despite 75 reports against it over mentions of "nudes, minors and extortion."
Snap said in a statement that its platform was designed "with built-in safety guardrails" and that the company made "deliberate design choices to make it difficult for strangers to discover minors on our service."
"We continue to evolve our safety mechanisms and policies, from leveraging advanced technology to detect and block certain activity, to prohibiting friending from suspicious accounts, to working alongside law enforcement and government agencies, among so much more," the company said.
According to the lawsuit, Snap was well aware, but failed to warn parents, young users and the public that "sextortion was a rampant, 'massive,' and 'incredibly concerning issue' on Snapchat."
A November 2022 internal email from a trust and safety employee says Snapchat was getting "around 10,000" user reports of sextortion each month.
"If this is correct, we have an incredibly concerning issue on our hands, in my humble opinion," the email continues.
Another employee replied that it's worth noting that the number likely represents a "small fraction of this abuse," since users may be embarrassed and because sextortion is "not easy to categorize" when trying to report it on the site.
Torrez filed the lawsuit against Santa Monica, California-based Snap Inc. in state court in Santa Fe. In addition to sexual abuse, the lawsuit claims the company also openly promotes child trafficking and the sale of illicit drugs and guns.
Victims, police expert among those who can testify in 2023 Oñate shooting trial, judge rules - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
A judge on Monday afternoon set guardrails around certain evidence and witness testimony in the upcoming attempted murder trial of a man who shot a climate activist at a protest over a controversial monument in northern New Mexico.
First Judicial District Court Judge Jason Lidyard ruled on five disputes between state prosecutors and defense attorneys for Ryan Martinez, who was recorded on video a year ago in September. Video shows Martinez repeatedly trying to rush into an area outside the County Commission chambers in Española where around 50 people were peacefully celebrating officials’ decision to postpone resurrecting a statue of genocidal Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate.
Martinez shot Jacob Johns, a Hopi, Akimel O’odham activist from Washington, once in the chest, according to the footage. Martinez is accused of then turning the gun on Malaya Peixinho. The gun jammed, the video shows, and Martinez fled the scene.
Attorneys on both sides told Lidyard they’ve been working around the clock to prepare for the trial, which begins on Monday and is expected to conclude two weeks later.
Martinez, 24, has been held in the Rio Arriba County jail in Tierra Amarilla for nearly a year awaiting trial. On Monday and at prior hearings, he could be seen attending via video link, waving to his mother Lita Martinez, holding his hand over his heart and carrying a miniature U.S. Constitution in the breast pocket of his jail uniform.
VICTIMS CAN TESTIFY ABOUT THEIR INJURIES
Martinez’s lawyers asked the judge to prohibit Johns and Peixinho from testifying about their injuries from the shooting.
Lidyard ruled Johns and Peixinho can testify about their injuries and medical treatment.
When the sides argued the issue at a hearing on Sept. 26, Marshall Ray, one of Martinez’s two defense attorneys, said the evidence of Johns’ “pain and suffering” after the shooting cannot be tied to his client’s intentions as it was happening.
To prove the attempted first-degree murder charge, prosecutors will have to convince the jury that Martinez intended to kill Johns when he shot him. Ray argued “those after-effects can’t possibly be relevant to intent.”
Lidyard said at the time that many people probably have common knowledge that getting shot at close range in the chest has the potential for serious harm, and Johns could testify as a matter of fact that “the injuries that he sustained could have killed him, but for the treatment he received, and his recovery.”
Then on Monday, Lidyard said without being in the trial, he can’t specifically say what is or isn’t admissible from the victims’ testimony, but he believes Johns’ “pain and suffering” would not be relevant.
“He may discuss the injuries he sustained, the prognosis of him recovering from those injuries, and the treatment he received and the amount of time it took him to recover, but as to pain and suffering, the court cannot see what the relevance would be,” Lidyard said.
If the defense believes prosecutors cross a line in their questioning the victims, Lidyard said he expects them to object.
POLICE USE-OF-FORCE EXPERT CAN TESTIFY
Prosecutors wanted to limit or entirely exclude former Albuquerque police officer Damon Fay from the trial, arguing that his testimony would confuse the jury because use of force by private citizens like Martinez is different from use of force by police.
Lidyard ruled Fay can give his expert opinion about the requirements to obtain a concealed carry license, which are relevant because Martinez had a concealed carry license and a concealed firearm when the shooting happened.
Lidyard also said he believes Fay can testify about things relevant to self-defense, and specifically whether “a danger of death or great bodily harm was presented to Mr. Martinez.”
However, Lidyard said he will not allow Fay “to invade the province of the jury,” meaning it’s the jury’s job — not his — to determine the facts of the case. Lidyard said he “has great concerns that may happen.”
For example, a question like, “Would a reasonable person in the same circumstances of Mr. Ryan Martinez have done the same thing?” would invade the province of the jury, Lidyard said.
“The court will rely on the state to make objections as they see fit to ensure that that does not occur,” Lidyard said.
An independent expert previously told Source New Mexico the rules governing self-defense deal with how a reasonable person on the street would perceive and react to the situation, and not what a trained police professional would do.
LATE-ARRIVING WITNESSES CAN TESTIFY
Martinez’s defense attorneys asked the judge to prohibit the jury from hearing from anyone who was not already made available for pre-trial interviews, which allow a defendant to investigate their case before going to trial.
Lidyard ruled that even though prosecutors did not make some of their witnesses available for pre-trial interviews, there are three who can still testify.
They include James Mayer, an Española police detective who handled the crime scene evidence, and Richard Miskimmins and David Wachter, two doctors who helped treat Johns’ wounds.
Prosecutors had good reason not to name the two doctors previously, because the primary treating physicians when the shooting happened are unable to testify, Lidyard said.
One moved to another country and the other no longer works at the University of New Mexico Hospital, Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long previously said.
Lidyard ordered Long to make the doctors available for pre-trial interviews before the trial begins.
ATTORNEY IN CIVIL CASES MUST ALSO TESTIFY
Mariel Nanasi is an attorney representing Johns and Peixinho in possible civil rights and tort claims. Martinez’s lawyers issued a subpoena to Nanasi, calling on her to testify. Nanasi asked the court to quash the subpoena.
On Monday, Nanasi argued the subpoena would only harm her clients by having the effect of making her a witness, and therefore prohibiting her from speaking to them while the case is pending.
She said she attended the protest but did not see the moment Martinez fired his gun. She said Martinez’s lawyers could have gotten the same facts from a number of other witnesses.
However, Lidyard ruled she must honor the subpoena. The exact reason remains unclear, because criminal defendants are not required to “show their hand” before a trial begins.
For a little less than 10 minutes, Lidyard met privately with Martinez’s lawyers so they could freely tell him why they are calling Nanasi to testify.
When they returned to the public hearing, Lidyard said the defense’s reasons for calling Nanasi “are material to their case,” and she has “exclusive” testimony that’s enough to deny her motion.
SOME EVIDENCE, TESTIMONY IRRELEVANT
Prosecutors wanted to call Jimmy Creed, Martinez’s parents’ neighbor in Cedar Crest, New Mexico, to tell the jury about an incident involving Martinez in the months leading up to the shooting.
They also wanted to show the jury items found in Martinez’s bedroom by State Police investigators after the shooting.
Lidyard ruled that Creed cannot testify, and items investigators found in Martinez’s bedroom are irrelevant, because Martinez didn’t take any of the items to Española.
“All of these items remained at his residence and were not utilized in any fashion during the course of the events for which this case is associated,” Lidyard said.
The evidence would only be admissible if Martinez’s defense somehow “opens the door” to it, Lidyard said.
Claims office pays men more than women for food lost in state’s biggest wildfire —Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
When thousands of northern New Mexicans fled the biggest wildfire in state history beginning in April 2022, some of them returned home to a nasty smell emanating from their fridges or freezers: food that went bad amid weekslong power outages.
Food storage is harder in the rural, mountainous areas affected by the fire, where many put deer or elk they harvested in freezers in the garage and store months’ worth of food to last through the winter. Grocery stores are few and far between.
Food lost in the wildfire, which was caused by two botched prescribed burns on federal forest land, is one category of losses that the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office is seeking to compensate victims for using a $3.95 billion fund approved by Congress.
To do that, the office is using a standardized calculator, which allows office employees to quickly figure out losses owed to a household by punching numbers into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet then applies a formula and spits out an amount for categories like firewood, evacuation costs, mileage, do-it-yourself repairs and more.
A copy of the spreadsheet obtained by Source New Mexico reveals the calculations and formulas the office devised as it seeks to fully compensate victims of the Forest Service’s mistake, choices it has often not explained to the public. As of Sept. 24, the office has paid $1.35 billion of the fund.
One such decision the spreadsheet reveals: Men are paid more than women for food losses, according to Source NM’s review.
A man aged 19 to 50 receives $104.70 for a week’s worth of lost food. A woman in the same age range gets $93, according to the calculator Source NM reviewed. Children get less than adults, as well: A girl between 12 and 13 gets $86.40; a boy between 12 and 13 gets $99.90.
Several wildfire survivors and advocates said they were unaware until recently that the office was paying men more than women for food lost in the fridge, and they thought the process was unfair or unnecessarily complicated.
Amy McFall lost all her food and her brand new fridge due to power outages at her home in Cañoncito de Manuelitas. She remembers several pounds of chicken and beef, a few pounds of frozen green chile and half a lime being among the culinary casualties. She said the claims office should not pay out based on assumptions about how much men and women eat.
“You can’t make a generalization like that. Sometimes, you know, you’ve got a woman who’s pregnant. They can eat like a horse,” she said. “My appetite is bigger than my husband.”
Janna Lopez, who leads a volunteer group for wildfire victims, said the office should just pay everyone a flat fee. It would be easier and fairer, she said.
“I think they should just have a standard rate,” she said. “I think it’s more fair if you have just one number.”
According to the claims office, the difference in payments is based on food plans prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture in February 2023. Those plans incorporate the expected “food needs per individual per week,” said spokesperson Danielle Stomberg.
The USDA has completed food plans since 1894 to “illustrate how a healthy diet can be achieved at various costs,” and they’ve been used by different state and federal agencies and the courts system, according to the USDA’s website. The plans base costs on a selection of foods that make up a healthy diet and the current market prices for those foods.
They also break food plans into three tiers based on a household’s ability to afford groceries, with the most expensive plans placed into the “liberal plan” tier. The claims office pays households based on the “liberal plan,” Stomberg noted. The “liberal plan” payment for a month’s worth of food for a man aged 19-50 has increased $8.60 between February 2023 and August 2024, according to the plans.
The office pays households for four weeks’ worth of food based on the age and gender of each recipient, and then pays a little extra for smaller households. A household with one man aged 19 to 50 gets $502.56. A household with one woman between ages 19 and 50 gets $446.40; a household with a man and woman between ages of 19 and 50 and two children between ages 6 and 8 gets $1,410.
The same formula applies to those who hosted evacuees: A host who put up a man aged 19 to 50 for 20 days will be paid $40.11 more than if they’d put up a woman in the same age range for the same amount of time.
Antonia Roybal-Mack, a lawyer representing hundreds of victims, said she thought the food payment system was “insane” when she first learned about it. She said most of her clients accept offers for food losses without much question, because they’re concerned about their other, more expensive losses, like lost trees, flood damage or the destruction of their homes.
Still, she said, the government has a Constitutional responsibility to treat people equally.
“The United States Constitution says that everybody’s equal under the law and needs to be treated equal by the government. And that’s really not what’s happening here,” she said. “The fact that they have a different rate for a man versus a woman– all those sorts of things are problematic.”
It’s not clear how much money has been paid via the standard calculator for food losses, and how much more has been paid to men than women. The office does not track those figures, Stomberg said.
Still, Stomberg defended the use of the calculators as one tool to simplify the claims process for thousands of victims with their own particular experiences of disaster and loss.
“Each claim is different, and the Standard Rate Calculators are one tool used to ease the burden on claimants,” she said.
The office has repeatedly pointed to the use of standard calculators as a reason they’ve been able to spend money quickly and efficiently.
Jay Mitchell, the new director of the claims office, said in a June letter to the Las Vegas Optic that more staff, better processes and the calculators “have increased the Claims Office’s output: Payments have nearly tripled since January, we’re issuing more Letters of Determination than ever before, and we’re processing payments faster than ever.”
Stomberg also encouraged claimants with questions about how much they’d be compensated to contact the office or their attorneys.
The calculator reveals other choices the office is making about how to compensate people. For example, payments for smoke damage range from $5.71 per square foot for a detached structure to $43.23 for places of worship. The per-square-foot payment for homes and apartments is $35.35. The office has paid nearly $400 million for smoke and ash damage payments, which is about 35% of the total paid out so far.
Also, residents who are seeking reimbursement for repairs they completed on their property can get paid by the hour, including for livestock handling, equipment repair, moving and storage, and debris removal. But the hourly pay they receive depends on which county they’re in: $18.97 an hour in Mora County, for example, versus $29.49 an hour in Santa Fe County.
The hourly wages are based on Census data, based on income data and median hourly wages, according to the calculator Source NM reviewed.
Yolanda Cruz, a community advocate who moderates a Facebook page for fellow survivors, provided the calculator to Source NM after getting it earlier this month from an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the claims office. The official did not respond to a request for comment.
Stomberg said the calculator Source NM reviewed is “unofficial,” and that the office was “unable to validate those posted or hosted externally.” Only the calculators that FEMA maintains are “official,” she said, though she confirmed in response to a list of questions several particulars about how the calculator works.
Singleton Schreiber, a law firm representing more than 1,000 clients also provided earlier versions of the calculator, with minor differences, to Source New Mexico after getting them from the claims office.
Movie armorer's conviction upheld in fatal 'Rust' set shooting by Alec Baldwin - Associated Press
A New Mexico judge on Monday upheld an involuntary manslaughter conviction against a movie armorer in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film "Rust."
Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed asked a court to dismiss her conviction or convene a new trial, alleging that prosecutors failed to share evidence that could have cleared her.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer in her written order noted that the armorer's attorneys did not establish that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the evidence been available to Gutierrez-Reed.
The judge also rejected a request from Gutierrez-Reed that she be released from custody, saying it was moot because the request for a new trial was denied.
Marlow Sommer halted and ended Baldwin's trial in July based on misconduct of police and prosecutors and their withholding evidence from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set outside Santa Fe.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for "Rust," was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
A jury convicted Gutierrez-Reed of involuntary manslaughter in March in a trial overseen by Marlowe Sommer, who later sentenced her to the maximum 18-month penalty. Gutierrez-Reed has an appeal of the conviction pending in a higher court. Jurors acquitted her of allegations she tampered with evidence in the "Rust" investigation.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of "Rust" and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Evidence that Gutierrez-Reed's attorneys said prosecutors failed to share included a report by a firearms expert about the functionality of the gun that Baldwin used, ammunition that was later turned in to authorities and an interview with "Rust" ammunition supplier Seth Kenney.
Defense attorneys did not immediately respond Monday to an email requesting comment on the judge's decision.
Gutierrez-Reed has pleaded not guilty to a separate felony charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where firearms are prohibited. A proposed plea agreement is awaiting court review.
Councilors want city to get serious about AI - Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
The proliferation of artificial intelligence has encouraged two Albuquerque city councilors to propose creating a group of experts from city departments to develop an AI policy.
The resolution, sponsored by Councilors Tammy Fiebelkorn and Dan Champine, is expected to be discussed at the City Council’s Oct. 7 meeting.
Champine said the goal is to ensure the technology is “being used in an appropriate way,” at City Hall.
“AI is growing and it’s everywhere, you can see it in every aspect of our lives now,” he said.
Fiebelkorn said the city does not have an AI policy and it is important to have a group of experts that sets guidelines for AI use. She said the group would outline opportunities and threats “from using AI in city business.”
“We’re not the experts,” Fiebelkorn said. “We think that the experts should get together, have these conversations and develop a policy that makes sense to the people of Albuquerque.”
The resolution states that an AI policy would protect against misuse of AI such as “perpetuating discrimination, social inequities, privacy violations, consent issues, security risks, environmental impacts, and deeper concentration of power, among many other potential negative impacts.”
Fiebelkorn said the working group would look at the ways cities and counties nationwide use different AI technologies. The group would include staff from the following city departments — which Fiebelkorn said are the departments most likely to use AI in some form.
According to the legislation, once the resolution is enacted, the working group would have nine months to develop the AI policy and DTI would need to submit a report to the City Council president.
An appropriation of $40,000 from the city’s general fund would be used to “support the development and implementation of the policy and identification of best practices with all AI uses,” the resolution states.
The group would also include stakeholders from community entities such as the city’s Information Services Commission, Albuquerque Police Officers Association, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other community members.
“This is a progress over time and something that can be looked at again,” Champine said. “As AI progresses, so should this program, to kind of keep up with it.”
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
WHEN: 5 p.m. Oct. 7
WHERE: Vincent E. Griego Chambers in the Albuquerque Government Center, 1 Civic Plaza NW
VIRTUAL: GOV-TV or on the city’s YouTube channel
Gila River Indian Community receives $107 million for Colorado River conservation projects - Shondiin Silversmith, AZ Mirror via Source New Mexico
The Gila River Indian Community has been a leader in Colorado River conservation efforts in Arizona, and their efforts are growing as funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will help the tribe launch new water conservation projects in October.
“Each one of these projects will allow us to use our water more efficiently on our farms, with annual savings in water of over 7,400 acre-feet per year,” Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said in a statement.
The Gila River Indian Community received funding from the Bureau of Reclamation for three separate critical water infrastructure projects totaling nearly $107 million.
Lewis said the Gila River Indian Community is excited about the funding for the three major infrastructure improvements because they will have significant benefits — not only for the tribe, but for the entire region.
“We are the largest entitlement holder of Colorado River water delivered through the CAP canal; our savings can readily translate into major reductions in our use of Colorado River water, which will add to the one million acre-feet of our water that we have already left in Lake Mead for the benefit of the system,” he said.
The agreements with the Gila River Indian Community are the first long-term pacts to be signed, and according to the Bureau of Reclamation, they can potentially create system conservation of over 73,000 acre-feet within the next 10 years.
The money is split among the three projects: $64 million to replace and upgrade irrigation systems on Gila River Farms, $26 million to concrete line more than 7.5 miles of earthen canals in the Blackwater area and $17 million to construct a regulating reservoir to capture flows that are currently being spilled from the Santan Canal when too much water is accidentally ordered or delivered into the system.
Lewis said the projects are ready to go: Two will begin construction in early October, and the third will get underway in November.
“All the projects will be completed prior to the Post-2026 guidelines, which will undoubtedly hit the state of Arizona very hard,” Lewis added, referring to scheduled cuts to Arizona’s Colorado River allotment. “These savings will help us all weather those anticipated cuts and also put us in a position of ensuring we use every drop of our water most efficiently.”
The guidelines and strategies established to protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River, which supplies more than one-third of the Phoenix area’s water, will expire at the end of 2026.
The Colorado River is experiencing the longest and worst drought on record, driven by hotter temperatures due to climate change.
The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven U.S. states. It is a crucial resource for 30 tribal nations, as well as two states in Mexico.
U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, said Arizona’s tribes are critical partners in securing our water future and boasted that he helped secure the funding to support the Gila River Indian Community and conserve Colorado River water.
Lewis said that the Gila River Indian Community appreciates Gallego and the Arizona delegation’s role in ensuring drought and water conservation funding were included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. The state’s Democratic members of Congress, as well as independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, all supported those measures; the Republicans all voted against them.
“We are proud to announce these agreements that will support the long-term health of the Colorado River System by shoring up (water levels),” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said in a statement.
“The new agreements with the Gila River Indian Community are the beginning of our long-term investments that will improve the sustainability of our river for generations to come,” Touton said.
As many forests fail to recover from wildfires, replanting efforts face huge odds — and obstacles - By Tammy Webber, Brittany Peterson and Camille Fassett, Associated Press
Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months.
"That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce," said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute.
Her research team is monitoring several species planted two years ago on a slope burned during the devastating 2020 Cameron Peak fire, which charred 326 square miles (844 square kilometers) in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
They want to determine which species are likely to survive at various elevations, because climate change makes it difficult or impossible for many forests to regrow even decades after wildfires.
As the gap between burned areas and replanting widens year after year, scientists see big challenges beyond where to put seedlings.
The U.S. currently lacks the ability to collect enough seeds from living trees and the nursery capacity to grow seedlings for replanting on a scale anywhere close to stemming accelerating losses, researchers say. It also doesn't have enough trained workers to plant and monitor trees.
The Forest Service said the biggest roadblock to replanting on public land is completing environmental and cultural assessments and preparing severely burned areas so they're safe to plant. That can take years — while more forests are lost to fire.
"If we have the seedlings but we don't have the sites prepped ... we can't put the seedlings out there," said Stephanie Miller, assistant director of a reforestation program.
Scientists, private industry and environmental agencies are acutely aware of the challenges as they consider how to restore forested landscapes in an increasingly arid region.
"We need to start being creative if we want trees on our landscapes," Stevens-Rumann said. "We're in a place of such drastic climate change that we are not talking about whether or not some of these places will be a different kind of forest, but whether or not they will be forests at all."
Reforestation gap
Four years after the Cameron Peak fire — the largest in recorded Colorado history — a smattering of wild raspberry bushes and seedlings has taken root. But the mountainside mostly is dotted with charred trees.
In burn scars across the West and Southwest, areas of forests may never grow back on their own.
Larger and more intense fires destroy trees that normally provide seeds for regeneration or leave burn scars so large trees can't naturally bridge the gap. The climate also has changed so markedly that many forests can't regrow in the same places. Even when seedlings take hold, drought and new fires often kill them.
Nineteen of the 20 largest wildfires ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. have occurred in Western states since 2000, according to Sean Parks, a Forest Service research ecologist. That's when the region slipped into an ongoing megadrought.
The U.S. once was able to reliably replant burned forests. But now the gap between areas in the West that need replanting after fire and the ability to do so has grown to at least 3.8 million acres (1.5 million hectares) — and that could triple by 2050, said Solomon Z. Dobrowski, a University of Montana forest management expert and a study lead author.
Forests are burning more often and especially intense and hot, which can destroy seeds that normally survive fire, harden the ground like concrete and leave barren slopes susceptible to washing away in rainstorms, polluting waterways.
In 22 years since the Hayman fire on Colorado's front range burned 182 square miles (471 square kilometers) of forest, there has been almost no tree regeneration in the most severely burned areas, researchers and the Forest Service said.
In California's Sierra Nevada, where up to 20% of the world's mature giant sequoias and their seeds have been killed by fire in recent years, there are massive openings without seedlings. A U.S. Geological Survey study concluded some groves will never recover without replanting.
But researchers say the odds of forests growing back will worsen regardless of fire intensity because of more heat and drought.
That means burned forest could convert to shrubland and grassland, leading to loss of snowpack that provides drinking water and helps irrigate crops.
"Over 70% of our water in the western U.S. comes from our forested ecosystems and our mountains," Stevens-Rumann said. "And for that water to come the way we want it ... at the right time throughout the year, we need to have forests, not just grasslands."
Targeted tree planting
When forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau joined the University of New Mexico nine years ago, he took in the aftermath of the 2011 Las Conchas fire that decimated a huge swath of Ponderosa pine forest.
Though the area had been replanted several times, most seedlings died, Hurteau said. While the average survival in the Southwest is about 25%, he said only about 13% of trees planted most recently in the Los Conchas burn scar have survived.
So he planted seedlings of different species at various elevations and on slopes facing different directions, then monitored the soil moisture, temperature and humidity.
A resulting computer model can predict the probability a seedling will survive in a particular spot with about 63% accuracy. It will be used to inform planting this fall.
"Let's not do the old plant-and-pray" method, said Hurteau. "Let's plant where we know that their chance of survival is quite high, and in places where the chance ... is quite low, let's just forego planting there."
Researchers say seedling survival is worst at lower elevations, where it's hotter, drier and more open — so replanting the same trees in the same areas is likely to fail.
They're experimenting with planting near surviving trees that might provide shade for seedlings and aid water uptake and with planting in clusters that leave gaps in the landscape. Some are even asking whether different species should replace trees wiped out by fire.
Environmental groups working on private land burned by the Cameron Peak fire are replanting Ponderosa pines 500 feet (152 meters) higher because of climate change and near fallen trees that can provide shade, said Megan Maiolo-Heath, spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed.
So far, 84% of trees planted last year remain alive, though long-term survival is uncertain. "Any work in the environmental world at this point can feel daunting and overwhelming," Maiolo-Heath said. "So I think just taking small bites ... and trying not to get too overwhelmed is the way to go about it."
Forest Service rules generally require planting the same species at the same elevations as before a fire, but it's increasingly clear the agency will "need to be flexible moving forward," said Jason Sieg, acting supervisor of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests & Pawnee National Grassland.
Relying on research data, Sieg said, "We'll be able to plan a strategy around how we set this landscape up for the greatest chance of success ... long term."
For now, that might mean replanting at different elevations or collecting seeds from another location. Eventually, researchers say it could require the controversial option of planting trees not found in an area originally.
Additional research and caution are necessary, researchers and the Forest Service said. But more people are warming up to the idea.
"I've seen people go from saying, 'Absolutely, we cannot move trees around' to, 'Well, let's maybe let's try it at least, and do a few experiments to see if this will work,'" said Stevens-Rumann, the Colorado scientist.
Restoration challenges
Four years ago, researchers and New Mexico's state forester wrote a reforestation plan for the state, where 4,500 square miles (11,655 square kilometers) of forest were charred between 2011 and 2021, leaving up to 2.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in need of replanting.
That was before the 2022 Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire — the most destructive in state history — burned another 534 square miles (1,383 square kilometers).
They soon discovered a big problem.
"We realized that we were never going to have enough seedlings to meet the objectives," said Hurteau, the University of New Mexico researcher.
The number of Forest Service nurseries — once financed by deposits on timber sales — dropped from 14 to six in the 1990s as timber harvests declined and habitat protections were enacted, according to a Forest Service report on the nurseries' history.
Most Western seedling production is private and occurs in Oregon, California and Washington, Dobrowski said.
In places like New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, "we don't really have a base of facilities to support widespread reforestation," the researcher said. "We're (asking) 'What's going to fill the gap?'"
In New Mexico, several universities and the state's forestry division started the New Mexico Reforestation Center with a goal of building a nursery that can produce 5 million seedlings per year for government, tribal and private lands. The first seedlings will be planted this year.
But experts say much more nursery capacity, seed collection and trained workers are needed to make even modest progress in closing the reforestation gap. And they say public and private sector cooperation will be essential.
"There's all these bottlenecks," Hurteau said. "We've just underinvested in reforestation for decades in the U.S. There's a lot of investment in human capital that's going to have to happen."
Seed collection, for example, requires the right weather and is expensive and labor-intensive. It takes a few years for a typical Western conifer to develop cones. Then contractors must harvest them, typically by climbing trees. Growing, planting and monitoring seedlings amid more frequent droughts adds to the uncertainty, time and money.
The Forest Service said its biggest challenge is simply that the number of intense wildfires is outpacing the ability to prepare sites for replanting.
But the agency is also modernizing nurseries and seeking ways to either expand internal capacity or work with private industry, states and groups like the New Mexico Reforestation Center.
"This is an all-hands-on effort," said Miller, from the reforestation program.
Researchers say the challenges complicate a Biden administration goal to plant a billion trees over 10 years in national forests, where it identified a nearly 4 million-acre (1.6 million-hectare) backlog.
But money provided for reforestation in the 2021 infrastructure bill enabled the agency to clear 15% of the backlog, Miller said. "If we can get more site preparation done, that would be excellent so that we can move forward a little bit faster."
Experts say there clearly will be areas where trees never return but it's critical that the U.S. does as much possible in a thoughtful way.
"Trees live for hundreds of years so we need to be thinking about what's right as we plant trees today," Hurteau said. "Are we putting the right species and densities on the landscape given what the next 100, 200 and 300 years will look like?"