Happy Fire Friday, FAC Network!
The New Mexico State Legislature convenes every year on the third Tuesday in January, holding 60-day sessions in odd-numbered years (such as 2025) and 30-day sessions (also called short sessions) in even numbered years. During these sessions, the chambers of the Legislature consider bills (the form of legislation used to propose laws), resolutions (a formal declaration of the Legislature concerning some subject that it either cannot or does not wish to control by law), and memorials (an expression of legislative desire that is usually addressed to another governmental body in the form of a petition or declaration of intent). Learn more about the State legislative process here.
In this year’s legislative session, several bills related to forestry, fire, and water are up for consideration. These bills making it to the floors of the House and the Senate indicates that New Mexicans — and their representatives — are putting wildfire and natural resource concerns first. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday discusses the implication of these bills being debated and considered for passage and looks at the details of several of the most impactful.
This Wildfire Wednesday features:
The importance of forest, fire, and water bills in the 2025 legislative session
Deep dives into:
Other important bills:
Stay fire safe as the spring winds start to blow,
Rachel
The Importance of Legislative Consideration
What it means for forests, water, and fire safety to be before the State Legislature
Photo by Andrew Weber for the Library of Congress.
The potential passage of the bills outlined below is important because, once passed, they become codified into statute and state law. This makes the objectives and directives in the law mandatory "must do" items for state employees, including those at the EMNRD Forestry Division. Creation of new programs and codifying amendments to existing law are one way to ensure new sources of state funding that can help protect residents against the next wildfire.
While homeowners and residents are ultimately responsible for readying their land place of residence for fire, the State and its Agencies also have a responsibility to help residents establish defensible space and harden their homes. The State and partner organizations have historically done this through resident education and outreach with minimal financial assistance. Some of the bills mentioned below, if passed, will go a step further by providing residents with the financial incentive to do so (see SB33). In addition to establishing defensible space and home hardening, we should also be working to clear and thin the overgrown forest buffers that surround so many of our state's rural communities (see HB175). Passage of these bills — and even the consideration of them — really means that New Mexico is looking into its warmer and drier future and taking proactive steps to make sure that everyone is protected.
Wildfire Prepared Act: SB33
When fire gets into an urban or developed area, it can spread from structure to structure rather than from burning vegetation to structure. For this reason, home hardening is an essential component of wildfire preparedness and is most effective when a majority of neighbors in a community individually harden their homes to collectively reduce their risk. The components of home hardening such as installing or replacing vents, siding, decks, roofs, and creating a ‘zero zone’ with no vegetation next to the house is necessary but financially out of reach for many residents.
Senate Bill 33 aims to increase home hardening efforts across the state three ways:
Making grants available to residents and organizations who can assist with making structural modifications to homes to harden them to fire. This work, while essential, is typically ineligible for financial assistance through existing federal and state grant opportunities.
Expanding the state Fire Planning Task Force to develop defensible space standards and develop standards that will make a property eligible for wildfire prepared certification, a step which may help landowners maintain or secure wildfire insurance.
Creating a state Forestry Division-administered ‘Wildfire Prepared Fund’ to support staffing, administration, and implementation of the other two provisions of this bill.
Read more in the SB33 Fact Sheet below. For more information, please contact EMNRD Forestry Division personnel George Ducker (george.ducker@emnrd.nm.gov) or Laura McCarthy (laura.mccarthy@emnrd.nm.gov).
New Mexico lawmakers are advancing a bill to prevent wildfires, including by removing fuels in the forest, before the next one strikes. This is Senate Bill 33, the Wildfire Prepared Act, which will help New Mexicans defend their homes against wildfires and provide grants for defensible space improvements and home hardening. "We're not going to stop wildfires altogether, but we can reduce them," said State Forester Laura McCarthy. "SB33 gets us at the things that we actually can control -- and that is the vegetation around properties." Watch the video below or view this article from radio station KSFR to learn more:
Forest and Watershed Restoration Act Amendment: HB175
Creating Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Buffers
For communities situated close to or abutting natural areas (wildlands), unmanaged flammable vegetation and lack of buffer zones (strategic barriers between natural vegetation and residential areas) create a dangerous environment where wildfires can rapidly spread from natural areas into residential neighborhoods, putting homes, lives, and entire communities at critical risk. Creating Buffer zones can significantly slow the spread of wildfires and create safer, more defensible operational areas from which firefighters can combat approaching flames.
House Bill 175 seeks to comprehensively address wildfire prevention and close this gap in protection by making strategic amendments to expand the Forest Conservation Act. It will:
Introduce precise legal definitions for "buffer zones" and "high-risk areas", providing clear guidelines for implementing protective measures around communities vulnerable to wildfire threats.
Expand the definition of eligible projects to explicitly include the creation and maintenance of protective buffers around wildland-urban interfaces, ensuring that preventative measures can be legally and financially supported.
Enable funds in the Forest Land Protection Revolving Fund to be used for these critical preventative infrastructure projects, transforming potential vulnerability into proactive community protection.
Read more in the HB175 Fact Sheet. For more information, please contact EMNRD Forestry Division personnel George Ducker (george.ducker@emnrd.nm.gov) or Laura McCarthy (laura.mccarthy@emnrd.nm.gov).
Other Important Bills
Timber Grading Act & Rural Electric Cooperative Wildfire Liability
…………………………
House Bill 553, the Timber Grading Act
Many local sawmills source their raw material from trees harvested from New Mexico forests, often from forest health restoration thinning projects. Smaller-diameter trees can be made into products such as latillas, wooden shipping pallets, animal bedding, wood stove pellets, molding, and more. Trees that are large enough to be cut into structural lumber and beams (like those you might buy at a hardware store) also make their way into mills; however, in order for those products to be sold commercially or for weight-bearing purposes (such as in home construction), they must first be ‘graded’ by a professional who determines that they are of an acceptable quality. There are no qualified graders in-state, so if a sawmill wants to get their lumber graded and approved for sale, they must pay an out-of-state professional to travel to their wood yard. This is financially inaccessible for many small mills, meaning that they are not able to produce and sell this type of product and the people of New Mexico are not able to purchase locally sourced and produced lumber.
House Bill 553 seeks to eliminate this barrier by establishing the Timber Grading Act to create a state-specific structural timber grading certification system for in-state sawmills. The EMNRD-Forestry Division will develop a grading certificate program, likely through a public post-secondary educational institution, to train sawmill owners and employees in timber grading. Participants can receive a five-year certification after completing the program, with the division able to charge up to $250 for the certificate. The bill requires graders to create detailed labels for graded timber, including information like the sawmill location, timber species, cut date, and moisture content. Importantly, timber graded and labeled under this in-state program will be considered equivalent to timber grade-stamped by accredited lumber agencies and can be used in all residential and commercial buildings in New Mexico. The bill defines key terms such as "grader" (a certified sawmill owner or employee who can inspect, grade, and label timber) and "structural timber" (dimensional lumber, structural beams, and vigas milled within New Mexico).
…………………………
House Bill 334, Rural Electric Cooperative Wildfire Liability
Following decades of power line-sparked wildfires across the West, Electric Cooperatives are coming under increased scrutiny and pressure to ensure the fire safety of their infrastructure. House Bill 334 seeks to improve Electric Cooperative liability by requiring company wildfire mitigation plans and allowing for EMNRD-Forestry Division to review those plans for adequacy. In return for establishing wildfire mitigation measures, limits will be set on liability and damage awards and claim filing against participating Electric Cooperatives.
Elements that must be included in a company’s wildfire mitigation plan include:
A description and map of the service area and electric system within,
Methods that the company will use to assess wildfire risk,
Procedures and standards for vegetation management within the service area,
Electric system maintenance and inspection procedures,
The design, procedures, and standards for construction of the electric system,
Procedures used to monitor and forecast potentially hazardous weather and otherwise remain situationally aware,
Emergency response and operational procedures that will be used in the event of a wildfire or during wildfire conditions,
Procedures to restore the electric system in the event of a wildfire, and
A description of the potential impact of the plan's mitigation measures on public safety, first responders and health and communication infrastructure.
An electric cooperative's plan will be effective for five years upon the date of approval by the commission. The bill sets forth liability limitations or exemptions for Electric Cooperatives if they comply with their approved plan, while still allowing for those impacted by a fire to claim losses if said wildfire is caused by a powerline failure or otherwise caused by the company. In this way, public safety is improved, fire victims are protected, and electric cooperatives have the safeguard of limited liability and will stay in business.
Upcoming Events
Webinar on lessons from the Jemez Mountains
A Long-Term View of Collaborative Forest Management: The 15-Year Southwest Jemez CFLRP Report // Tuesday, March 25, 2025 at 12:00 PM Mountain
Multi-party monitoring is a central feature of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) and allows communities to assess the ecological, social, and economic impacts of these landscape-scale stewardship projects over a long period. The Southwest Jemez Mountains (SWJM) CFLRP, implemented from 2010-2024 in north-central New Mexico, was led by 40 agencies, organizations, Tribal entities or representatives, universities, contractors, and citizen volunteers. The goal of the SWJM project was the large-scale restoration of forest ecosystems and improvement of overall resilience to major disturbances, including fire, insects and disease, and a changing climate.
In this presentation from the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, key Collaborative members Jeremy Marshall, Robert Parmenter, Steven Del Favero, and Jeremy Golston will present their lessons learned from 15 years of cooperative work and multi-party monitoring. They will discuss whether the goals of the CFLRP were met, focusing on the impacts of multi-decadal managed and prescribed fire, forest thinning, and the monitoring and computer modeling showing that forest resilience and restoration treatments ultimately reduced fire risk or severity in the treatment area. This presentation offers insight for land managers currently involved in landscape-scale restoration and wildfire risk reduction and is based on the SWJM CFLRP Final Monitoring Report, expected to be released in the spring of 2025.