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Rain. High 61F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..
Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 47F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph.
The 2022 Taos County CWPP Update assessed wildfire risk countywide, and also ranked 61 individual communities based on the threat posed by catastrophic wildfire. This process helps land managers and other partners prioritize forest treatments and other work to reduce those threats.
The 2022 Taos County CWPP Update specifically calls for efforts to increase the local restoration workforce in order to augment land-based economic development that improves the health of our landscape.
The 2022 Taos County CWPP Update assessed wildfire risk countywide, and also ranked 61 individual communities based on the threat posed by catastrophic wildfire. This process helps land managers and other partners prioritize forest treatments and other work to reduce those threats.
The 2022 Taos County CWPP Update specifically calls for efforts to increase the local restoration workforce in order to augment land-based economic development that improves the health of our landscape.
Wildfire is and has always been a part of the Northern New Mexico landscape. But in today’s world, as we all saw so poignantly earlier this summer during the Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak Fire, the scale and severity of wildfires in our region is almost certainly going to have long-term impacts on all of our lives.
For a community as diverse as Taos County, our individual connections to the land and the potential impacts of high-severity fire are equally varied. Newcomers and visitors are often drawn to the spectacular scenery and easy access to hiking, mountain biking and skiing. Many Hispaño residents still count hunting, fishing, firewood cutting and piñon harvesting as traditional activities that define their roots and their heritage. Of course the acequia culture, and local farming and ranching, are also linked to the health of our forests and watersheds. And for folks from Taos Pueblo, the Blue Lake Wilderness is a sacred landscape that is central to their cultural identity and millenia-old way of life.
Simply put, the health and resiliency of our forested lands are central to the health and well-being of our community. And to most effectively reduce the risk posed by high-severity wildfire, Taos County has done an especially good job of developing, regularly updating and, most importantly, implementing its Community Wildfire Protection Plan (otherwise known as the CWPP).
This document serves as the foundation of wildfire preparedness in our county, and is the blueprint for not only reducing the risks posed by wildfire, but maximizing the ancillary benefits to our ecosystems and our residents, no matter what their connection to the landscape. This means targeted protection and improvement of water quality and quantity. It means increased access to firewood and other forest products. And it also means augmenting economic opportunities and workforce development in the ecological restoration sector.
Earlier this month, the Taos County Commission formally approved the 2022 Taos County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Update. For the past year, many partners have taken part in putting this plan into action, including Carson National Forest; the Bureau of Land Management; New Mexico Forestry Division; Taos Pueblo and Picuris Pueblo; Taos County; several municipalities; the Taos Soil and Water Conservation District; land grant and acequia boards; local forestry contractors; land owners; neighborhood associations and Firewise communities; nonprofits such as Amigos Bravos, the Taos Valley Acequia Association and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. These groups have all participated in field trips, virtual meetings, in-person meetings, one-on-one brainstorming sessions and other activities — all with the goal of contributing to a collective action plan that will guide our work for at least the next five years.
The previous version of the Taos County Community Wildfire Protection Plan was last updated in 2016. It included important information about forest and fire ecology, the history of land use and development in Taos County and the process for responding to (and recovering from) wildfire. It also laid out goals and objectives meant to reduce wildfire risk. While the word “plan” is often synonymous with “inaction” (well-laid plans often sit on the shelf), partners in Taos County have been extremely effective at putting the 2016 plan to work — raising millions in grant funding to coordinate and implement forest treatments while also improving community education and outreach efforts.
For this more-recent 2022 CWPP update, the update team relied on new and improved data (harvested from the 2020 New Mexico Forest Action Plan) that models the likelihood of a wildfire, threats to water resources, threats to habitat and biodiversity and the threats to communities. This high-level data was then vetted by local partners on the ground who have an intimate knowledge of forest conditions, and experience with wildfire behavior in our area.
This CWPP update also incorporates a formal ranking system that quantified the wildfire risk to 61 communities across Taos County. This ranking system not only helps identify the areas where wildfire poses the greatest threat to the health, safety and welfare of residents, but it also helps identify what steps need to be taken to reduce that risk. The team also considered the risk to other infrastructure — including everything from overhead power lines to ski areas — based on the same data and criteria.
This ranking information, combined with the new wildfire threat data, was then used to plan and prioritize five years worth of forest restoration and hazardous fuels reduction work in the woods.
When it comes to thinning work and prescribed burning work, the goal of the CWPP Core Team is not to touch every single acre of overgrown forest with a chainsaw. The scale of unhealthy forest conditions is simply too big. Instead, the CWPP team has gone to great lengths to identify the forest ecosystems and/or communities that would benefit most from these treatments, then strategically places that work so that it will prevent high-severity, catastrophic wildfire from moving uncontrolled across the landscape.
This CWPP update also specifically calls for more opportunities for traditional forest use, including community-led efforts like the many forest mayordomo programs that have sprouted up across the county and make it possible for locals to manage thinning work while providing firewood and cash incentives for getting involved in restoration efforts. The update also describes the importance of indigenous burning as a tribal-led effort to restore forest health and cultural practices.
The new plan also highlights opportunities for building up local forestry contractors, possibly creating new forest-related jobs that help to diversify the economy while improving the health and resilience of the landscape.
Putting the finishing touches on the 2022 Taos County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Update is not an end — it’s a beginning. The same team that put this plan together has been meeting every three months since 2009 to make sure work is happening, and that team will continue to drive this effort. The timing of this particular plan update coincides with a national push to significantly increase the pace and scale of wildfire risk reduction, and there is an unprecedented amount of funding available at the state and federal levels to aid in this effort. In order to access those funds, and to ensure that money is spent as thoughtfully and effectively as possible, the updated CWPP is the new roadmap to convince those who hold the purse strings that we’re ready and able to put that money to work, and to steer our community’s collective efforts and reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire for the next several years.
J.R. Logan is the Taos County Forest and Watershed Health Program Manager. He oversees several forest restoration projects that promote ecosystem health, traditional uses and economic development in Northern New Mexico. To learn more about the forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction in Taos County, visit taoscountywildfire.org.
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