The most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s history – the 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire – was started when two prescribed fires got out of control. The U.S. Forest Service then paused burning to review and reform its program, an effort the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on this month.
Fires like Hermit’s Peak are extremely rare – just seven out of the average 4,500 hundred annual prescribed burns the agency conducts escape, according to the full report. The GAO laid out a number of factors in those escapes, including burn plans with inaccurate information, improper plan implementation, and insufficient staffing.
The report also found that the agency successfully carried out changes necessary to resume burning, but more work remains. The agency still needs to establish better performance metrics for burns and build a workforce able to carry out the scale of prescribed fire that many agree is necessary, among other steps.
“(T)he Forest Service has recognized that these reforms — which are critical to expanding the scope, scale, and safety of the prescribed fire work the agency believes is needed to help reduce wildfire risk — will require major changes to agency practices and culture, which may be resisted by some staff,” the report reads.
U.S. Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), who requested the GAO investigate the agency in 2022, said in a statement that the “Forest Service still has work to do so no community suffers like New Mexicans did.”
“Some of the errors the GAO uncovered — like including incorrect vegetation in a burn plan — are outrageous,” she added. “The Forest Service must do better to prevent future tragedies.”
Neil Chapman is with Flagstaff’s Fire Department in Arizona, and served on a federal wildfire commission last year that also identified workforce size as a key prescribed fire barrier.
“The Forest Service can't do it alone,” he said. “Our local partners can't do it alone.”
He also agreed that developing good success metrics is essential.
“It's just it's not the number of acres, it's the right acres,” he said.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
