All Hands All Lands Burn Network
The All-Hands All-Lands Burn Network (AHAL) is a collaborative effort lead by the Forest Stewards Guild and The Nature Conservancy of New Mexico, and supported by a variety of partners, including federal agencies, Tribes, Pueblos, youth corps, municipal fire departments, call-when-needed firefighters, the Rio Grande Water Fund, and many others to accelerate the return of fire to frequent fire ecosystems.
The initial goal for AHAL is to get ahead of prescribed fire backlogs on federal, state, and tribal lands and support private landowners’ use of prescribed fire. Although this network continues with this goal, the team has a wider capacity. Along with partners, the AHAL Burn Network works to increase the safety, effectiveness, and availability of prescribed fire as a land management tool. We achieve this by removing common barriers like cost, required qualifications, limited resources, lack of professional knowledge, and technical skill gaps. We also mobilize seasonal burn teams consisting of a mix of partners, contractors, staff, and volunteers to amplify knowledge, skills, and abilities. Lastly, we engage the public through stories, photos, and opportunities for involvement, to raise awareness for forests and watersheds. Read more about AHAL in this case study report.
AHAL is currently looking for new prescribed fire projects.
Ideal project are ones that:
Are led by landowners or managers who are ready and willing to undertake prescribed fire which includes:
Supporting the project with the resources available to them (i.e. funding, permitting support with local authorities, equipment, or resources, etc.)
Understanding and accepting the liability of hosting burn projects
Understanding the timeline from initial scoping, through funding and planning, to implementation
Visibility to the community or allowing opportunities for community engagement to build acceptance of prescribed burning
Achieve burn objectives such as building forest resilience or reducing risk of wildfire.
Are practical and implementable, meaning fuels, topography, size, fuel breaks, access, and other factors lead to an acceptable level of risk for a successful burn.
Follow up on forest treatments that lend to prescribed burning.
A Burn Questionnaire is available to gather initial information to help AHAL Network members assess the practicability of a project.
We are building towards a place where fire is used when and where appropriate for community and ecosystem resilience, without insurmountable barriers.
We do this by:
Building wide-ranging capacity to support burns on all lands, including training, qualifications, experience, equipment, and planning
Implementing collaborative burns and supporting partner burns
Improving acceptance and understanding of prescribed fire as a tool by implementing safe and effective burns and offering opportunities for the community to engage with prescribed fire
Learn more by viewing the
All Hands All Lands StoryMap!
Sam Berry, Southwest Associate Director
Want to join the burn team?
Have a potential burn?
For inquiries please contact:
Sam Berry - SW Associate Director, Forest Stewards Guild sam@forestguild.org
Will Joy - Prescribed Fire Specialist, The Nature Conservancy william.joy@tnc.org
News Releases
None at this time, check back later!
Press
6/6/2025: NM PBS – New Mexico in Focus, Forest Stewards Guild Talks Prescribed Burns and Resiliency in NM
1/6/2025: Santa Fe New Mexican, Apache Ridge prescribed burn halted after neighbors raise concerns
10/22/4024: The Taos News/ Roswell Daily Record, Prescribed burns, big and small, ongoing in North-Central NM
8/3/2023: KUNM, With new rules, and community engagement, Forest Service brings back prescribed burns
1/21/2023: Albuquerque Journal, Following the fire: Forest Stewards Guild says prescribed burns remain critical to forest health; view the video on YouTube.
1/5/2023: Albuquerque Journal, NM prescribed burns continue with precautions.
12/31/2022: Santa Fe New Mexican, Nature Conservancy aims to boost Northern New Mexico watershed through prescribed burns
10/12/2022: In New Mexico, Partners Collaborate to End Siege from Megafires.
2/20/2022: Albuquerque Journal, Burning Mission.
2/3/2022: Santa Fe Reporter, Forest management group takes advantage of winter storm to burn hazardous fuels and train private landowners in mitigation techniques
1/16/2022: Albuquerque Journal, A friendly forest fire: Given a safe layer of snow, workers burn debris to save thicket
11/11/2021: NGOs help light prescribed fires on public lands
1/27/2021: KRQE News, Dry conditions throughout New Mexico could set up for busy fire season
10/18/2018: Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy Newsletter - Western Region
Successes
2025
Mitigation Work
The winter of 2024-2025 was dry and snowless, but for AHAL, the work continued. To help support wildfire mitigation work, the AHAL Winter Crew participated in several thinning projects on municipal, federal, tribal, and private land adjacent to Forest Service land. These projects helped mitigate heavy fuel loads around city infrastructure, helped mitigate invasive species, and supplied firewood to elderly community members.
2024
Black Lake Broadcast Burn
In October 2024, the AHAL crew scouted, prepped, coordinated, and executed the Black Lack Rx. Located in Black Lake, NM, this burn was made possible because of the partnerships we share with local fire departments, the State Land Office, and other non-governmental agencies. Thanks to everybody involved, fire personnel were able to burn 120 acres to build upon other past projects in that landscape. The AHAL network plans to participate in future burns in the area.
Aztec Springs Pile Burn
A burner marches through the snow to the next pile.
In January 2024, over the span of just a few days, snowpack conditions in the mountains near Santa Fe allowed for over 100 acres of piles to be successfully burned. The All Hands All Lands crew teamed up with the City of Santa Fe Atalaya hand crew and other collaborative partners to implement this burn. This work reduced hazardous fuels in the form of old slash piles, helping to reduce wildfire threat to adjacent communities.
2023
Cottonwood Gulch Broadcast Burn
A youth crew member walks the handline on the Cottonwood Gulch broadcast burn.
A collaborative broadcast burn on 100+ acres of land owned by Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions was successfully completed during the week of October 2-5, 2023. About 40 personnel were onsite for ignitions and mop up, with resources coming from the Cibola National Forest, Santa Clara Pueblo, McKinley County, the Ember Alliance, Forest Stewards Guild staff and youth crews, The Nature Conservancy, and staff from Cottonwood Gulch. This burn was years in the making and was a huge triumph!
Glorieta Camps Pile Rx
Glorieta Camps provided an opportunity for the AHAL team to burn piles on their land in early 2023. Read the full write-up from the Forest Stewards Guild’s Fire and Fuels Coordinator here.
2022
Mangas Rx
AHAL joined the New Mexico State Land Office and partners to successfully complete a prescribed burn of 83 acres of state land south of Pie Town near Mangas Divide. The State Land Office teamed up with the Nature Conservancy, The Ember Alliance, and the Forest Stewards Guild for the burn, which took place from November 12-17. Read more here.
The AHAL team hikes through deep snow towards the piles to be burned.
Valles Caldera Piles Rx
In February 2022, the AHAL team supported an 80-acre pile burn on National Park Service land in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
Pacheco Canyon Piles Rx
Slash piles burn in Pacheco Canyon under watchful eye of fire crews from multiple jurisdictions. USDA Forest Service photo.
The All Hands All Lands Burn Team had the opportunity to take part in a collaborative burn implemented by the Santa Fe National Forest and others. Crews completed a total of 443 acres of slash piles and woody debris on Forest Service lands and another 111 acres on the Pueblo of Tesuque’s Vigil Grant. Read more here.
Glorieta Camps Pile Rx
An employee of Glorieta Adventure Camps uses a drip torch to light a pile.
The crew returned to Glorieta Camps in January 2022, leading a 70 acre pile burn and offering training and education to Glorieta Camps staff. Organizations like Glorieta Camps, along with other private landowners that wish to proactively manage their forested land, were empowered by the Prescribed Burning Act of 2021 to carry out good burning practices on their property. Read more here.
2021
Glorieta Camps Pile Rx
The All Hands All Lands Burn Team completed pile burning at Glorieta Adventure Camps during late January 2021, completing 30 acres. AHAL has the unique capacity to support prescribed burns on privately owned land, filling in a needed gap in the world of fire practitioners.
Martinez Canyon Rx
The 1893-acre Martinez Canyon Prescribed Fire was implemented on April 30th on the Carson National Forest, Tres Piedras Ranger District. The project was a culmination of several years of analysis and planning. The prescribed fire area is a smaller portion for the Rio Tusas-Lower San Antonio landscape restoration project. This prescribed fire was completed with assistance from an All Hands All Lands crew administered by the Forest Stewards Guild that included crew from the Tesuque Pueblo. Watch the video here.
Smoke from the Ensenada Rx rising into the air.
Ensenada Rx
AHAL supported the Carson National Forest in October 2021 to implement the Ensenada broadcast burn Thursday near El Rito, New Mexico, treating 1,243 acres to restore and improve forest health.
2020
Aztec Springs
One of the AHAL pile burns at Aztec Springs.
The All Hands All Lands Burn Team was able to support the City of Santa Fe wildland team in reducing hazardous fuels directly adjacent to the city of Santa Fe. This area has been mechanically treated by the city fire crew over the last few years and piles from that work have been building up. The AHAL burn team provided nearly half the burn team when it came time to burn those piles including hiring previous city of Santa Fe firefighters who had been laid off for the season. This project shows the strength of the AHAL burn team in providing the flexibility and nimbleness to be able to provide the right crew at the right time.
Guadalupe Mtn Rx & Pot Mtn Rx
In February and March of 2020, the AHAL team worked with the Taos BLM to complete pile burns covering a total of 359 acres in the Río Grande del Norte National Monument: on the Guadalupe Mountains south of Cerro, N.M., and on Pot Mountain approximately 7 miles west of Cerro, N.M.
2019
Wind Mtn Rx
The Cerro Del Aire Rx burn brought together the perfect combination of forces. The AHAL burn team was able to provide overhead and logistical support to the Guild’s Forest Stewards Youth Corps fire crews as they supported a BLM lead burn on New Mexico State Trust Land. That seems like a lot to put in one sentence, but it goes to show the power leveraging investments to get fire back on the ground and the crucial connective work that AHAL allows for. Read more about this burn here.
Copper Hill RX
Following years of work conducting analysis and treatments in a complex mix of ponderosa and pinon and juniper forests on State Trust Land near Penasco, NM the Copper Hill Rx continued the work of the 2017 Rio Trampas TREX and returned fire to these forests in June 2019. A diversity of collaborators came together over 5 days to complete 500 acres of burning with a wide range of fire effects that were appropriate for the diversity of forest types. This prescribed fire was a success in using a flexible team of diverse partners to get fire on the ground to benefit forests and the communities nearby and down stream.
Aztec Springs RX
The City of Santa Fe Fire Department and the Forest Stewards Guild used snowy conditions to burn 7 acres of piles in the Aztec Springs area of Santa Fe on January 30th, 2019. Burning these piles was the next step to reduce fuels after the City's wildland fire crews thinned the area near communities on the east side of Santa Fe. This work helped advance the goals of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition.
Tent Rocks Rx
In June 2019 All Hands All Lands Partners supported the Santa Fe National Forest on a 1350 acre burn near Tent Rocks in New Mexico. AHAL provided a fully staffed engine with partners from Chama Peak Land Alliance, and others to patrol active fire line on the burn.
2018
Click here to read an in-depth summary of the All Hands All Lands burn team’s inaugural year
How to Engage
If you have a project that needs beneficial fire and you think it fits our ideal project description, please fill out the following questionnaire (AHAL Burn Unit). From there, one of our AHAL leads will reach out with more information.
About the Rio Grande Water Fund
The Rio Grande Water Fund invests in the restoration of forested lands upstream so we can secure pure fresh water. Our goal is to generate sustainable funding over the next 20 years to proactively increase the pace and scale of forest restoration, including the most high-risk areas in the Rio Grande watershed. This innovative project offers a solution that can bring clean water and outdoor opportunities to New Mexicans for generations to come.
