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Fire season in New Mexico has many chilling meanings. There are the immediate impacts - loss of homes, devastation of wildlife habitat, loss of vegetation, and alteration of most features we think of when we visualize our mountain lands. At the Natural Resources Conservation Service, fire season has another meaning for it can mean a time to mobilize resources to protect the land and people from the aftermath of fires through Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) administers the EWP Program, which responds to emergencies created by natural disasters, such as wildfires and floods. Funding for the program is provided through emergency congressional appropriations.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program available for local sponsors to use to aid in recovery work. NRCS provides technical and financial assistance to install measures that reduce post-flood and fire damage. The measures are intended to reduce threats to life or property, retard runoff, restore capacity of waterways, prevent flooding and/or soil erosion and reduce damage from sediment and debris. The removal of debris deposited by the disaster that is a health or safety hazard can be a part of such measures as well.

Summer 2015 Newsletter

December 7, 2017 blog post from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. Two of the articles are about Prescribed Fire Learning Exchange burns in New Mexico.

Firescience.gov Friday Flash eNews, Issue 229, December 8, 2017. Fact sheet and summary of fuel treatment findings from Joint fire Science Program studies.

Description of the topics covered during the Malpai Borderlands Group 2015 science conference, held Jan. 6, 2015 in Douglas Arizona

Information about past fire regimes can be a helpful reference to guide and inform land managers about current and future fire regime characteristics, patterns, and forest structure characteristics. Management activities that benefit from understanding past fire regimes include prescribed fire, managed wildfires for resource benefit, and mechanical treatments to reduce fire risk. This working paper discusses several methods for reconstructing historical fire regimes. The potential value and limitations for reconstructing historical forest structure and composition with each method are also briefly covered

Information about past fire regimes can be a helpful reference to guide and inform land managers about current and future fire regime characteristics, patterns, and forest structure characteristics. Management activities that benefit from understanding past fire regimes include prescribed fire, managed wildfires for resource benefit, and mechanical treatments to reduce fire risk. This working paper discusses several methods for reconstructing historical fire regimes. The potential value and limitations for reconstructing historical forest structure and composition with each method are also briefly covered

Ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests in the Southwest United States are experiencing, or have become increasingly susceptible to, large-scale severe wildfire, insect, and disease episodes resulting in altered plant and animal demographics, reduced productivity and biodiversity, and impaired ecosystem processes and functions. We present a management framework based on a synthesis of science on forest ecology and management, reference conditions, and lessons learned during implementations of our restoration framework. Our framework informs management strategies that can improve the resiliency of frequent-fire forests and facilitate the resumption of characteristic ecosystem processes and functions by restoring the composition, structure, and spatial patterns of vegetation. We believe restoration of key compositional and structural elements on a per-site basis will restore resiliency of frequent-fire forests in the Southwest, and thereby position them to better resist, and adapt to, future disturbances and climates.