Project Jupiter air permit dispute taken to state Supreme Court - Algernon D’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
Less than a month before a hearing over an air quality permit for Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, clean energy advocate New Energy Economy filed an emergency writ Wednesday asking the state Supreme Court to consider whether the hearing should proceed.
The petition asks New Mexico’s high court for a temporary stay and an order halting the proceedings, scheduled to open Sept. 14, arguing the start date denies opponents their right to investigate technical evidence and prepare their case.
Project Jupiter is a complex of four data centers with an office campus and microgrid power-generating facilities that began construction last September. The facility, claiming 1,400 acres of land along a crucial state highway, is planned for Oracle Corp. and OpenAI to use for AI training capacity.
The New Mexico Environment Department is considering an air quality permit application, filed by Yucca Growth Infrastructure, for methane-powered fuel cell technology that would cause carbon dioxide emissions exceeding the combined annual emissions of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe, based on those cities’ published greenhouse gas inventories.
According to an annual report recently submitted to Doña Ana County, the builders have already spent $144.5 million on preliminary work for the microgrid facilities, bringing them to 10% completion as of June 30. However, the microgrid is facing procedural hurdles that have led opponents to question whether the air permit can legally move forward.
Pipeline builder Energy Transfer proposed a natural gas line extending nearly 18 miles from El Paso, Texas, across a mix of private, federal and a short stretch of state trust land. Referred to as the Green Chili Lateral, the line was to supply Project Jupiter with 400 million cubic feet of gas per day.
The State Land Office has twice rejected a business lease and rights-of-way through state land, and it is not clear whether the decision will lead to an appeal or a rerouting of the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the route through federally managed lands is undergoing a contested process before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where Energy Transfer in recent filings has moved the pipeline’s beginning of service from the end of this month into 2027.
New Energy Economy, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit, has argued that the complications with the pipeline mean the data center has no established fuel source and that the permit is not ready for consideration.
On Aug. 5, NMED’s hearing examiner, Max Shepherd, ordered Yucca Growth to submit a brief in response to NEE’s motion for dismissal of the application — only to reverse himself five days later and rule that the question be addressed during the hearing instead.
That was one in a series of self-reversals by the hearing examiner that NEE argued has thwarted a fair hearing.
First, Shepherd ruled in July that the hearing would begin Oct. 19, despite the developers’ request for a speedier process, only to move the hearings up to Sept. 14, days later. That cut time needed for opponents to review technical records and for expert witnesses to prepare testimony by an Aug. 24 deadline, NEE said.
Earlier this month, Shepherd reversed his own decision that opponents, including NEE, were entitled to review evidence pertaining to the scientific and engineering soundness of the microgrid. NEE’s petition argues that for due process to prevail, technical witnesses must have “a fair opportunity to discover and test the facts before being required to render sworn opinions.”
Moreover, the petition complains that Shepherd allowed the NMED to produce the full administrative record on Aug. 24 — the deadline for challengers’ technical testimony.
Shepherd did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
“This process has been turned upside down,” NEE Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said in a written statement. “Our experts are being told to testify first and learn the facts later. We are denied discovery. We do not get NMED’s thousands-of-pages administrative record until the very day our expert testimony is due. And if Project Jupiter suddenly unveils a new gas-supply plan, new engineering assumptions or new technical evidence, we are apparently expected to discover it at the hearing and cross-examine on the fly. That is not due process. It is trial by ambush.”
The Journal reached out to counsel for the New Mexico Environment Department as well as Yucca Growth Infrastructure and Oracle, but did not immediately hear back.
The proliferation of data centers amid controversies over transparency and environmental damage has divided Democrats who hold majorities in the state Legislature, with some planning to introduce a statewide moratorium on data center development at the next legislative session.
“We cannot continue to sacrifice our people for so-called economic development,” state Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, D-Mesilla, said in a written statement. “Beneath every ton of pollution there will be children, parents and elders impacted by Project Jupiter and the decisions of Governor (Michelle) Lujan Grisham's administration. Families in Santa Teresa, Sunland Park, and our fronteriza communities already shoulder disproportionate environmental harms.”
In a sworn statement included in NEE’s petition, state Sen. Carrie Hamblen, a Las Cruces Democrat who said she will carry a moratorium bill next session, wrote: “Due process loses much of its meaning if the only remedy comes years after the challenged proceeding has concluded and the project has been substantially constructed. The constitutional right at stake is the right to participate meaningfully before the government makes a decision with potentially irreversible consequences.”
New Mexico poll workers in rural county required IDs to vote during June primary, observers say - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A team of observers who fanned out across New Mexico polling sites during the June primary electionsaid workers at a polling place in rural Union County required voters to present identification, which New Mexico law does not require.
The nonpartisan Observe New Mexico Elections said it enlisted 45 volunteers between April and June to observe key stages of the primary to help strengthen voter confidence in elections, including voting machine certification, poll worker training and results certification, as well as vote counting of absentee, early and election day ballots.
The group released a report Tuesday that characterized New Mexico’s primary election as “generally calm, orderly, and well-administered” across locations in all 33 counties. But in a statement, Carmen López, the group’s co-lead, said observers noted “a few challenges related to navigating the voting process, which were addressed promptly with minimal disruption.”
A news release from the organization also said it intends to share findings with county and election officials, along with recommendations for improving voter processes in advance of the Nov. 3 general election.
For instance, in Union County, observers at an unspecified polling location reported that voters were consistently asked to present physical forms of identification in order to vote. As a result, 150 voters were “inappropriately asked” for ID at the polling site, according to the group.
The rural, predominantly Republican county in northeast New Mexico saw roughly 35% turnout during the primary election, in which 785 of 2,512 eligible voters cast ballots, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Poll workers told voters that presenting identification is not mandatory, but will be eventually, so voters should get used to it, according to Observe New Mexico Elections.
Union County Clerk Devian Fields did not respond to Source NM’s requests for comment Wednesday regarding the report’s allegations. Fields, a Republican, was first elected to the role in 2024.
López told Source NM in a statement Wednesday that her group shared early drafts of its report with Union County officials, who “neither affirmed nor denied what our observer watched.” In its news release, ONME recommended Union County “update its poll worker training to ensure that voter check-in procedures align with state law.”
Observers did not report similar, illegal identification requirements in any of the 34 other polling sites they visited during the June 2 primary.
The group’s report also flagged issues at Sandoval County polling sites related to both the county’s provision of election materials in multiple languages and requirements for observers to be granted access to polling sites.
The report concluded that Sandoval County failed to provide multilingual written materials, particularly in tribal languages, and also said the county required ONME’s observers to procure county-provided photo IDs before they could access polling sites. That requirement, which the group contends violates state regulations, harmed the group’s ability to train and recruit observers and otherwise impeded “election transparency,” according to the report.
Shawn Perry-Turner, Sandoval County’s director of marketing and communications, pointed Source NM to a memorandum county officials provided the observer group that lays out its responses.
In that memo, county officials disagreed that state law required it to provide written, multilingual voting materials if the county has adequate translators on hand. They also noted that no voter requested ballot translation help at the polling site observers attended.
They also said no observer was ever required to procure a photo ID to access polling sites and affirmed that doing so will remain voluntary in future elections.
“At the same time, we appreciate ONME’s recognition that the 2026 Primary Election was administered in a calm, orderly, professional, and secure manner without evidence of systemic irregularities,” Sandoval County officials wrote.
Concerns about the New World screwworm have put Texas pet adoptions on hold - By John Hanna, Associated Press
Adoptions are on hold for thousands of dogs and cats in Texas, potentially putting the animals at risk of being euthanized, because of efforts to stop the spread of the New World screwworm, an insect that has crossed the border from Mexico into the United States for the first time in 60 years.
The flesh-eating parasite threatens the nation's $113 billion beef industry, prompting federal officials to close the border to cattle movements. Because the screwworm also can infect pets, most states have restricted the movement of animals from infested areas of Texas, leading to crowded conditions in state shelters that rely on adoptions to other regions of the country.
"It's thrown a wrench into things, for small rescues as well as the bigger shelters," said Mia Bendixsen, executive director of the Texas Humane Legislation Network, which promotes animal welfare laws.
The screwworm can lay eggs that hatch into flesh-eating larvae in the wounds or mucous of any mammal, and of the dozens of infections in southern Texas and southeastern New Mexico, several have been in dogs. Forty-four states have restricted the movements of pets from infested areas, creating a hardship for shelters from Texas that typically send thousands of animals to other states each year.
In Corpus Christi, the Gulf Coast Humane Society couldn't get rescued dogs into New York state for weeks, causing the shelter's animal population to climb from around 325 to nearly 450.
The shelter, which sends about 500 dogs a year outside Texas, created more space in outdoor exercise areas until New York again allowed dogs from Texas — if a veterinarian first certified that each one wasn't infected with the screwworm.
She added that if her shelter doesn't have space to take animals from municipal shelters, "then they have to euthanize more animals."
Texas has a surplus of dogs and cats for adoption
Moving dogs and cats from Texas to other states, particularly in the Northeast or Great Lakes region, has become crucial to saving stray and abandoned animals.
In 2025, Texas had more unadopted dogs transferred out of its shelters than any other state — nearly 89,000, according to the American Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals. Texas also euthanized about 45,000 dogs — more dogs than any other state, according to the data.
And Texas led in the number of cats transferred out of its shelters — nearly 53,000 — and was second to California in those euthanized, with almost 29,000.
Texas has more stray dogs and cats than any state other than California — about 439,000 in 2025 — largely because of its high population and size. Warm weather also allows stray animals to survive longer and breed more, said veterinarians and animal welfare advocates. They added that Texas pet owners seem less willing to spay or neuter their dogs.
"There are people with working ranch and farm dogs, both male and female, who feel like the animal will lose some of its drive," said veterinarian Lori Teller, executive director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association.
Both shelters and animals are stressed
In Houston, Humane Society shelter Director Aaron Grady said an inability to send animals out of state has left them more stressed.
"If an adopter comes through and they're going from kennel to kennel and they see one dog who may be sitting calmly and contentedly in one kennel and then in the next kennel, there's one dog who's bouncing off of the walls and barking because of how stressed they are, first one may be looking more desirable," Grady said.
The Houston shelter has worked to keep its animal population — mostly cats and dogs — at about 200 by tapping a network of foster homes for up to 300 more and by helping pet owners keep their animals even a little longer.
Most states have tightened rules for importing animals
Restrictions on animal transports followed efforts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to keep the New World screwworm fly from crossing the border with Mexico.
Those efforts include construction of a $750 million fly factory in southern Texas that's set to open in April 2027 for breeding billions of sterile males. The U.S. had largely eradicated the fly by the early 1970s by breeding sterile males and releasing them from planes to mate with females, who laid eggs that wouldn't hatch.
Smaller facilities in Texas and southern Mexico have been dispersing sterile flies bred in Panama, and another is planned for Arizona.
Florida — where the screwworm fly can thrive — banned imports of rescued dogs and cats from Texas and New Mexico just a week after the first reported case in Texas this year. Other states required veterinarians to inspect animals and declare them free of the parasite. Many shortened the period that a certification was valid from the typical 30 days to as little as three days.
Shelters worried about space long before the return of the screwworm
State restrictions hit an animal welfare system that's long been short of the money and other resources, said Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.
She said shelters need more money and space, but communities also should require animals to be spayed or neutered — and have programs to provide those services if people cannot afford them.
"If we could provide them just with some basic support, they might be able to keep those animals in their homes, and that's one less animal in a shelter, one less animal being killed," she said.
COVID-19 stressed the system, too, in part because pandemic restrictions put spaying and neutering on hold. Cost-of-living increases are another reason people turn animals over to shelters.
"A lot of them are just saying, 'I just can't, I just can't do it anymore,'" said Brandon Krodle, animal control supervisor in Greenville, Texas, a fast-growing city northeast of Dallas.
A trip from Texas to Indiana saved her dog's life
Mills, the Corpus Christi shelter director, has a dog who would have died in 2015 but for a nearly 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) trip from Paris, Texas, to Angola, Indiana, where Mills was working at the time. Zuri, a young female Shepherd-pit bull mix, was on a list of dogs set to be euthanized, and Mills' counterpart in Texas asked Mills to add Zuri to a transport.
Zuri's right ear doesn't fully straighten up, and the puppy had "the cutest face," Mills said, but she was sold on Zuri because Zuri looked as if she "was actually thinking things through" as Mills spoke to her. Mills broke a personal rule against taking her shelter's animals home.
When Mills moved to Corpus Christi in 2020, Zuri returned to Texas.
"The shelter that I was at in Indiana, we transported from Texas and Southern states every week," Mills said.
Questa-area acequias sue feds over hydrogen project - Emily Sender, Taos News
Local acequia associations in the Questa area have filed an injunction against a proposed hydrogen plant and solar farm.
The Taos News reports that the associations are concerned about the project’s impact on the local environment, including endangering water resources and potential pollution.
The proposed hydrogen plant headed by the Kit Carson Electric Co-op would use roughly 15 million gallons of water annually to make hydrogen from the molecules.
The USDA issued a special document saying it found the project would have no significant environmental impact, allowing the project to move forward without conducting more extensive investigations.
Additionally, in 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy determined the project’s environmental impact to be so low that it didn’t require a public comment period.
The acequia associations argue that the environmental review of the hydrogen plant’s water use was not thorough enough under law and that it doesn’t factor in issues like drought and climate change.
They’re also concerned about the project's construction on a superfund site heavily contaminated from mining and how it could impact the local water.
Trump picks Dr. Heidi Overton, a UNM School of Medicine grad, to lead the FDA - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide with roots in New Mexico, has been picked to leadthe Food and Drug Administration, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
The 2007 Gallup High School graduate received her medical degree in 2015 from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
In 2007, Overton was in the second class of a UNM program for New Mexico students that guaranteed admission to the UNM School of Medicine if they maintained good grades as undergraduates.
As a medical doctor and deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council who has worked on several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives, Overton has become a trusted figure in his administration and a champion of the Republican president’s goals.
Yet any new FDA commissioner will have to balance a raft of competing priorities, between Trump’s fixations, the anti-regulatory interests of traditional Republicans and the anti-corporate posture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head,Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May, leaving behind unfinished projects including work on ultraprocessed foods, antidepressants and COVID-19 shots.
Referring to a “Dr. Heidi” in a Truth Social post, Trump called Overton a smart and respected “rockstar” who would deliver on his priorities of faster cures, innovation, lower drug prices and more wins for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
Overton was born in Cortez, Colorado. As a child, she lived in Durango and then Carlsbad. Her family moved to Gallup when she was 8.
Overton's name first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal in 2004 when she was listed as a starter for the Gallup High School girl's soccer team, as a goal keeper. She graduated in 2007 as co-valedictorian of her graduating class.
That year, Overton was selected as one of 27 students for UNM's "BA/MD" program, which guaranteed admission to the UNM School of Medicine for students who completed a bachelor’s degree at UNM.
The medical school expanded its entering enrollment in 2010 from 75 to 100 students, with 25 slots dedicated to participants in the BA/MD program. The program was intended to mitigate the state's doctor shortage and encourage more doctors to serve in rural areas of the state.
“I would love to go back to Gallup and be a doctor,” Overton told a Journal reporter in 2007. Overton said she decided to become a doctor after doing an internship with a family physician in Gallup.
She reiterated her commitment to New Mexico in 2014, shortly before her graduation from medical school, telling a Journal reporter she hoped to work as an oncology surgeon at UNM Cancer Center after completing her residency.
“I have to reflect on how much New Mexico has given to me,” she says. “I intend to serve this state and give back.”
Overton's plans apparently changed as she pursued residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she earned a doctorate in clinical investigation, according to her LinkedIn profile.
While in medical school, Overton was appointed in 2013 to a two-year term as the student regent by then-Gov. Susana Martinez.
“The UNM School of Medicine congratulates Dr. Heidi Overton on her nomination to be FDA Commissioner,” Dr. Patricia Finn, dean of the medical school, said in a statement Wednesday.
Before joining Trump’s second administration, she served as chief policy officer at the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute.
In recent months, she has appeared with the president to unveil major projects, including some of his “most favored nation” deals with drug companies to lower prices to those of other developed countries and his recentcontroversial vaccine order, which sought to split the combined measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine intothree separate immunizations against the advice of medical groups.
At an Oval Office event to promote that order, she stood by the president as he falsely suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concludedthere is no link.
Overtonhas been critical of abortion pills and, if confirmed, would be positioned to roll back FDA rules that made the pills more accessible. U.S. abortion opponents have expressed frustration that the administration hasn’t moved to stem the flow of abortion pills prescribed online, a situation they view as undermining state abortion bans.
To get confirmed, Overton will have to win approval from a narrowly Republican-led Senate and face questions from the Senate health committee. Its chair, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana, has been a vocal critic of some of Trump’s actions to sow doubt in vaccinations, including his recent order.
A spokesman for New Mexico’s Democratic party criticized Overton nomination.
"Sadly, it appears that Trump selected an individual who will only continue his FDA's agenda of restricting reproductive rights, promoting anti-vaccine policies, and increasing foodborne disease outbreaks, " said Daniel Garcia, spokesman for the Democratic Party of New Mexico.
Before he left the FDA, Makaryhad drawn complaints from health industry executives andanti-abortion activists, but frustration with him came to a head over the agency’s lack of movement on flavored e-cigarettes. Companies such as R.J. Reynolds are seeking to market to adult smokers, but sweet-flavored vapes have long been blamed for the trend of teen vaping, and FDA scientists have hesitated to endorse them to curb adult smoking.
Days before Makary left, the agency opened the door to allowing moreunauthorized electronic cigarettes andnicotine pouches onto the U.S. market, a policy change thatessentially bypassed agency staff experts.
Pharmaceutical companies will also be looking for changes at the agency, following rejections or reversals of biotech drugs intended for rare diseases. Complaints from biotech companies, investors and patient groups have grown and have been taken up by conservative lawmakers.
Makary attempted to assuage industry grievances, in part by announcing new programs designed to streamline or accelerate drug approvals. But some of those initiatives have created new headaches for the agency.
Several of Makary’s deputies also exited the agency.Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s vaccine and biotech chief, stepped down in April following intense criticism from drugmakers, patients and investors. AndDr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, who was involved in scrutinizing the safety of antidepressants,COVID-19 vaccines andother widely used therapies, was replaced as FDA’s acting drug center director.
Makary’s replacement will also need to tend to the priorities of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
One major decision for the next commissioner is what to do about peptide regulation. A panel of federal health advisersselected by Kennedy recentlyrecommended easing access toseveral peptides popular with wellness influencers and celebrities, despite warnings from FDA scientists that the chemicals haven’t been shown to be safe or effective.
The agency also recently proposeda rule change that would require food manufacturers to notify regulators before introducing new ingredients or additives into processed orpackaged foods. But the agency is still working with the White House to finalize a first-of-its-kind definition of ultraprocessed foods, which Kennedy blames for nationally elevated rates of diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.
Under Kennedy, the FDA has also set up extra hurdles for vaccine testing and blocked the publication of research into the effectiveness of COVID-19 shots. And Kennedy stood by Trump recently as the president signed the executive order aimed atupending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., despite unprecedentedfinancial and logistical challenges.
The FDA also has an ongoing review of widely used antidepressants, including whether they may increase the risk of autism and other disorders when used during pregnancy. The medicines have long been a target of Kennedy, who was a leader in the anti-vaccine movement before joining the government.
The agency has also been investigating two summertime foodborne illness outbreaks: a cyclospora outbreak linked to tainted iceberg lettuce that hassickened thousands of people and jalapeño peppers linked toa multistate salmonella outbreak.
ICE agents make arrest at Santa Fe clinic lot - Margaret O’Hara, Santa Fe New Mexican
In Santa Fe, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a person Wednesday morning in the parking lot of La Familia Medical Center on Alto Street.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that ICE agents followed a parent and child from their home to the La Familia parking lot on Wednesday morning.
Federal agents did not enter the clinic, but remained in the parking lot to arrest the parent and wait for another family member to pick up the child.
ICE agents left the La Familia parking lot over an hour later.
Representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not confirm the arrest without the name and date of birth or Alien Registration Number of the person detained.
Frijoles Fire containment spikes to 31%, but officials warn 13,900-acre blaze has staying power - John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
The Frijoles Fire burning in the Pecos Wilderness northeast of Santa Fe is likely to remain a fixture in northern New Mexico for some time.
Firefighters digging trench line, heavy machinery operators moving earth and aircrew dropping fire retardant overhead made notable progress on the now 13,000-acre Frijoles Fire by Wednesday morning, raising containment from 9% to 31% since the weekend.
But at a public meeting Tuesday evening, fire officials who have been sobered by a long and dry fire season issued a clear warning: The fight to control the Frijoles Fire is far from over.
“Moving forward, this fire is probably going to be on the landscape for a considerable period of time,” said Lee Helgeson, a fire behavior analyst for California Complex Incident Management Team 8, which is overseeing the fire. “We are near the end of the historic monsoon season. With that, we didn't get much rain from the monsoon. The weather is going to work against us in that case.”
Containment efforts have so far focused mainly on the western and northwestern edges of the fire. That’s where several small villages — Rio Chiquito, Cordova, Cundiyó, Chimayó and Truchas — lie within 4 to 7 miles of where the fire still burns.
So far, only Camino de Cañon, a street in Cundiyó, has been evacuated. Santa Fe County continues to provide updates using the International Fire Chiefs Association’s “Ready, Set, Go” system via the county website.
In recent days, westerly winds have driven the fire away from exposed communities, higher east into the Pecos Wilderness, where the Frijoles Fire was discovered on Aug. 4.
Due to the steep and rugged terrain on this eastern perimeter of the fire, the incident management team has relied heavily upon helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to rain fire retardant over the wilderness.
Forrest Gale, a Forest Service incident management trainee, said air crews are avoiding waterways when dropping payloads of the reddish liquid, which is comprised of water combined with fertilizer salts.
Retired wildland firefighter Bobbie Scopa said fire retardant isn’t currently known to pose any long-term health consequences when distributed carefully outside of waterways.
“Every firefighter has been painted pink multiple times in their career, sometimes multiple times in a summer,” she said.
Scopa said Arizona, where she lives, has also seen below-average rainfall this monsoon season, but New Mexico has remained particularly dry in the Southwest region.
Meteorologists predicted this week that a weak cold front crossing into the state over the next several days is unlikely to bring much more precipitation to New Mexico, leaving firefighters to keep battling a blaze on a bone-dry landscape filled with forest fuels ready to burn.
“Specifically the footprint of the fire, there is no fire history,” Helgeson said on Tuesday.
Heading into the weekend, the forecast calls for a greater chance of thunderstorms, which can bring moisture as well as powerful winds and lightning strikes that pose risks to firefighters and can keep aircraft grounded.
The Frijoles Fire itself is believed to have been caused by a lightning strike during a dry thunderstorm over the Pecos Wilderness on Aug. 4.
A day after the fire was reported, the Journal noted 15 lightning-caused wildfires across the state since late July after reviewing Forest Service reports.
The New Mexico Forestry Division last week said its own data indicate 50% of wildfires firefighters have responded to since July 1 have also been due to lightning — 97% more than the previous five-year average.
“Between July 1 and August 13, we’ve responded to 219 wildfires, and 117 of those have been lightning-caused,” Wildfire Prevention and Communications Manager George Ducker said. “Our five-year average of lightning starts during this same period is 59. That’s nearly twice the amount of lightning starts.”
Several audience questions at Tuesday’s meeting inside the Santa Fe Convention Center probed the speed of the response to the fire.
Incident Commander Mike Page said local fire teams dispatched a helicopter to begin dropping fire retardant on the wildfire’s origins high in the Pecos Wilderness early the morning of Aug. 5.
“We had two hotshot crews here, some engines, response from a couple different agencies,” Page said. “So during the initial attack of the incident, I think things actually went pretty well. The other part of that is getting additional resources.”
Firefighters across the U.S. were working to contain 75 major wildfires as of Wednesday, with 26,890 personnel assigned to incidents nationwide, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. A total of 49,418 wildfires have burned more than 7.4 million acres across the country in 2026, 129% of the 10-year average.
The high number of wildfires in the U.S. this year has stretched firefighting resources to their limits.
Scopa said the manpower the Forest Service has dedicated to the fire has been significant relative to the Frijoles Fire’s size compared to many others that have burned in the West this year.
Total personnel on the fire had grown to 780 as of Wednesday, and the Forest Service has ordered additional vehicles and equipment to assist in surrounding the blaze’s more than 40-mile circumference.
“The majority of the work out there is hand-tool country only,” Helgeson said. “We can't get equipment in there. So when we're talking about digging line around this, we’re talking about digging line 43 miles. That’s a long ways. It’s going to take time.”
