by Roz Brown for Public News Service
Wildfires have become more frequent and ferocious in recent decades and a new report highlighted a bipartisan effort to find practical solutions.
"Advancing Conservation Through Bipartisanship," research prepared by Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting and the Outdoors, documented how congressional representatives are collaborating across party lines.
Max Metz Jr., conservation program director for the group and the report's author, said action on the Fix Our Forests Act is needed as New Mexico communities continue to face wildfire threats putting homes, forests and watersheds at risk.
"New Mexico is seeing exactly the kind of fire conditions that make forest management so important. Wildfire risk isn't theoretical for communities. It is something that is in their backyard," Metz explained.
Prolonged wildfire seasons and increasingly severe fires threaten the lives of humans and animals, local economies, public lands and vital water resources. While many conservation and wildlife organizations support the Fix Our Forests Act, others are skeptical, fearing it will weaken environmental safeguards and threaten long-term ecosystem health.
Metz noted the legislation prioritizes treatment in high-risk firesheds, which can mean taking out some low-value, smaller trees while protecting larger, more resistant and resilient trees. The report acknowledged many problems in need of being addressed are inherited.
"It's been a very active and difficult fire season across the entire Southwest and this extreme fire activity is all impacted by forest management and prior forestry decisions," Metz pointed out.
Metz added it is hard to make progress unless people who live, work and steward wildfire-prone landscapes every day are involved in decision-making.
New Mexico's 2022 Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire, a prescribed U.S. Forest Service fire that got out of control, was the largest in the state's history at 341,000 acres. Currently, the lightning-caused Frijoles fire burning in northern New Mexico has destroyed 15,000 acres but no structures.