By Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote

Our beautiful New Mexico skies have been stubbornly blue for months, and we know what that means. A few weeks ago, Patrick Lohman, of the online Source New Mexico, reported severe drought across the state.

Lohman has racked up more fire coverage than any New Mexico journalist, so when I see a fire story with his byline, I pay attention.

He also reported that “federal cuts could leave one-third of the state without dispatchers to monitor for nascent blazes and fewer firefighters to respond if they blow up.”

Go online and you’ll find colorful maps with the color red bleeding across the page to tell us that above normal fire conditions cover most of the state. Two years of moderate precipitation encouraged growth of fuels like grass and pine needles. Now they’re dry as paper. It’s a matter of when, not if.

“It’s bad, man,” UNM fire ecologist Matt Hurteau told Lohman.

In February the “Department of Government Efficiency” ordered the firing of 3,400 Forest Service seasonal employees. DOGE’s budget cutters were supposed to exempt firefighters. They didn’t know that 75% of the laid-off employees were trained and qualified in wildland firefighting. They didn’t know that most of the agency’s field crews are seasonal employees. They didn’t know that these crews not only clean recreation sites, they maintain trails and thin forests and that both steps are key to fire prevention. They didn’t know that during a fire, they’re also firefighters and fire support. And they didn’t know or care that the Forest Service is already understaffed, which is why every employee is involved in fire management.

A federal judge ordered the 3,400 workers to be reinstated, but they can still be fired in a reduction in force. The president has asked the Supreme Court to block the ruling.

What’s particularly shameful is that the Office of Personnel Management told these people they were being fired for “poor performance,” an obvious lie that hinders future employment. As one of them wrote recently, they willingly sleep on the ground, sweat and freeze to clear trails and clean campsites, and respond to backcountry medical emergencies – all for very little money.

At the same time, DOGE plans to close the supervisors’ offices of the Cibola National Forest and Gila National Forest. Both house dispatch centers that coordinate fire response by federal, state and tribal agencies and monitor wildfire detection systems. They cover 45,000 square miles. Although U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich has received “assurances” that they won’t close, the General Services Administration has been noncommittal.

UNM’s Hurteau worries that multiple wildfires in the West will quickly exhaust available resources. We’ll have permanent employees providing incident command, along with aircraft, but not boots on the ground. He also worries that under-staffed fire crews, who by nature and culture give their all, will be injured or killed.

The one spark of good news is that the state Forestry Division is in the process of training 1,500 full-time and volunteer wildland firefighters this year. It also has 37 full-time wildland firefighters in three crews.

And the Legislature passed House Bill 191, which creates two wildfire-related permanent funds to bolster the state Forestry Division. The Wildfire Suppression Fund will pay for contract wildland firefighters, equipment and supplies, and vehicle rental and repair. The Post-Wildfire Fund will pay for recovery efforts and environmental rehabilitation.

It’s a great idea, but the appropriation is $12 million, hardly enough to make a dent during a major disaster, especially if Forest Service cuts are permanent and FEMA disappears.

The bottom line is that Elon Musk, who pays close attention to his own bottom line, is leaving New Mexico to burn.

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.