Alejandro Collins,
NMFWRI Collaboration Specialist
NMFWRI Collaboration Specialist
The NM Prescribed Fire Council (NMPFC) hosted its annual in-person meeting in Taos at the end of September. As a member of the Steering Committee and the Treasurer, I joined more than 20 other Council members representing state and federal agencies, NGOs, and private land managers for two days of strategic planning, sharing successes and lessons learned, and connecting with fire practitioners across the state.
The NM Prescribed Fire Council is a collaborative nonprofit dedicated to advancing the use of prescribed fire in New Mexico to benefit ecosystems, watersheds, forests, rangelands, and communities. The Council is governed by an all-volunteer Board and is supported by a dedicated group of interest holders from across the state that are well versed in the art and science of prescribed fire. Together, Council members host educational workshops and training events, take part in media interviews, and collaborate with NM legislators and US congressional representatives on prescribed fire issues.
The two-day gathering in Taos started with a Steering Committee meeting where Board members met to discuss the Council’s direction and next year’s priorities to increase the use of beneficial fire on private lands. That afternoon, all Council members were invited to join Tallyn Donati (Fuels Manager for the Carson) and JR Logan (Taos-based forestry contractor) on a field trip to visit treatment areas in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) on the Carson National Forest. Tallyn and JR led attendees in a discussion related to the decision-making involved in treating high-priority and high-visibility areas.
Day 2 of the annual meeting was held indoors, with presentations from various Council members and invited speakers covering topics like private lands prescribed fire, managed fires, and community engagement related to prescribed fire. The annual meeting ended with small breakout groups for topic-specific discussions and recommendations for Council activities related to collaborative burning, policy, and the state’s prescribed burn manager certification program.
In the short term (1-3 years) the Prescribed Burn Council’s primary goal is to deliver on a Cooperative Agreement with the USFS to increase the use of prescribed fire on private lands through training opportunities, pre- and post- burn public engagement efforts, liaising with inholding and boundary landowners, and coordinating collaborative action for the Council. We have made some good progress on this by hiring two Council coordinators to advance our internal and on-the-ground efforts, and recently, just entered into a contract with a non-governmental organization to provide prescribed fire trainings and outreach with private landowners. Because our goals relate to private lands burning, I see our biggest hurdles as liability, capacity, and public opinion.
Although the Council does not implement burns, which means that we would not be liable, we serve as the coordinator and connector for prescribed burns on private lands. This means that our partners that we are supporting to implement burns face almost insurmountable challenges in getting good fire on the ground. The combination of unanswered liability concerns, a lack of capacity to implement a burn, and a generally negative view of prescribed fire, is hard to overcome. This is especially true when considering that everyone wants to burn at the same time of the year (because that’s when the conditions are the best) and the amount of work required to prepare a unit for a burn, which is only worth it if there will be enough capacity to actually implement it, if the landowner is willing to take on the liability, if the neighbors are accepting, and if local government provides any necessary approvals, such as permits.
Regardless of these challenges, the Council and its partners are making it happen. We are re-energized and committed to moving full steam ahead by strengthening relationships, looking for new partners, and identifying better ways to leverage resources, local knowledge, and collaboration to benefit people, forests, grasslands, and watersheds.