wildfires

Big wildfires earlier this year damaged the acequias that funnel water to New Mexico’s rural farms and communities. Diversion structures were destroyed, silt and debris filled many existing water channels and water flow changed paths. Monday acequia managers asked lawmakers in Santa Fe to fully fund acequia disaster response.

Victims of the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire can now begin applying for compensation for losses caused by the largest blaze in state history. The fire charred almost 350,000 acres in Northern New Mexico last spring and summer after U.S. Forest Service prescribed burns got out of control. The federal government has accepted responsibility and Monday the Federal Emergency Management Agency opened the claims process.

A recent webinar discussed the costs of fire mitigation, home insurance, the need for better communication with homeowners living in the WUI, and how towns can put this information into practice.

Over the past year, the University of New Mexico was awarded $1 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation to explore community resilience to natural disasters. So, scientists, PhD candidates, professors, and high school students decided to take this money and develop low-cost sensors to monitor post-wildfire flooding on pueblo land.

New Mexicans affected by wildfires may be eligible to receive disaster food benefits and unemployment assistance, but the deadlines to apply are rapidly approaching.

While emergency shelters are going up all around northern New Mexico for people fleeing wildfires, animal welfare organizations are banding together to make sure furry family members have a place to run to.

Wildfires have burned just over 120,000 acres of land in New Mexico in the past year alone––and several organizations in the region have received federal funding to fight them.

Drought adds fuel to the Southwest’s massive wildfires by killing off swaths of forests. That’s been exacerbated over the last decade by bark beetles that attack and kill live trees. Now, a new study shows climate change is accelerating these processes, causing more trees to die faster.

Increasing drought and tree mortality rates are causing forests in the American Southwest to die earlier and quicker –– which can add fuel to devastating wildfires.

Two Western cities registered the poorest air quality in the world over the last week as smoke from wildfires in northern California turned the skies over the Rocky Mountains into a chalky white abyss.