New Mexico Forestry Division

06/17/2026

Some good lookin' forest 🌲

This land was thinned to reduce risk of bark beetle outbreaks under our Forest Health Initiative program. This program works to boost tree health and reduce pressures from insects, pathogen and diseases.

This cost-share program reimburses landowners up to 80% of the treatment cost.

Curious to learn more? Check out our Forest Health page to see if this might be a good route for your land: https://www.emnrd.nm.gov/sfd/forest-health/

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

Our forests face urgent issues. We're hiring a Forester for our Chama District (San Juan County, Rio Arriba County and western half of Taos County) to develop and coordinate collaborative, cross-boundary forest restoration projects.

Help landowners, tribes and local governments meet their forestry goals, from wildlife habitat to forest economy to watershed restoration and wildfire risk reduction.

Apply by June 30 Visit https://www.emnrd.nm.gov/sfd/join/

Spread the word! 📣🌲

06/12/2026

Tree deaths tripled in New Mexico during the second warmest year on record, according to a new report that shows a mixed portrait of resilience and vulnerability across New Mexico’s forested landscapes.

Each year, the New Mexico Forestry Division and U.S. Forest Service conduct aerial surveys to map insect and disease activity across 14 million acres forests and woodlands.

This year’s survey shows that during 2025:

→ Beetle-killed conifer forest increased 211%, mostly on national forest lands
→ Forests impacted by drought and heat increased 66%
→ Defoliation (distinct from mortality) decreased 51%
→ Total acreage with damage decreased 6%

While pest populations boom and bust in cycles, New Mexico’s forests are persistently stressed by prolonged drought, rising temperatures and resource competition due to too many trees on the landscape.

“Our forests have exceeded the land’s carrying capacity,” said Victor Lucero, forest health program manager. “No matter what, disturbance events will try to rebalance our ecosystems, whether it’s through human intervention, like proactive thinning, or biological events such as pest outbreaks or wildfire. We can manage disturbances to prevent catastrophic events like these in the future.”

“It's important to contextualize that this report is a snapshot of New Mexico’s forests at a specific time,” said State Forester Laura McCarthy. “However, this snapshot is a good predictor of what to expect for the next few years if such meager precipitation and warm winter temperatures persist.”

📰: Read the full release and the report: https://mailchi.mp/state/tree-deaths-tripled-2025

06/09/2026

How hot did the Seven Cabins Fire burn?

In the Lincoln National Forest, specialists have finished assessing soil burn severity across the 32,000-acre footprint. What they found? 76% burned at low severity.

Findings show:

→ 7,800 acres (24%): unburned/very low
→ 16,600 acres (52%): low
→ 5,300 acres (17%): moderate
→ 759 acres (2%): high

Soil starts to change significantly at moderate to high burn severity. That’s when areas are at serious for flooding, erosion and long-term declines in soil health.

These numbers help illustrate something very clarifying about wildfire: Fire numbers like total acreage can be shocking, but even the biggest numbers don’t mean high severity the entire way through. Even in largely high-severity burns, like HPCC, healthy pockets and green islands often persist across the fire footprint.

Learn more about their survey and findings: tinyurl.com/2ax8apcx

06/08/2026

Our largely rural state relies heavily on volunteer firefighters to respond to fires, car crashes and other emergencies in remote areas. Volunteers are usually first on scene. In sparsely populated areas, it often falls to spouses, siblings, parents and their children to keep rural fire stations running.

Amber Ivanowski, 16, is one of these people carrying the tradition forward. When the Tusas Fire roiled up north of Las Vegas, New Mexico, mid-April, she was one of the first two firefighters on scene.

Amber joined the Sapello-Rociada-San Ignacio Volunteer Fire Company at 14, carrying on a calling passed down from her grandfather to her mother and father.

In this month’s The Spark, read Amber’s story about how she “fell in love with” her family’s firefighting tradition — and why members like Amber are more crucial than ever.

🔥 Read The Spark at facnm.org/the-spark-wildfire-preparedness-is-year-round

🔥 Thanks to Spark partners Forest Stewards Guild Bureau of Land Management - New Mexico and New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute

06/05/2026

Eyes on the prize.

For two years, New Mexico’s Mimbres Hand Crew has worked to build skill and cohesion to tackle wildfires like a well-oiled machine. Now, they're ready for a new challenge: hotshot status.

More impressive still: Mimbres would become just the fourth state-led crew among the 115 interagency hotshot crews in the U.S.

"Very few people have done that and succeeded," assistant superintendent Chase Smith said.

Read their story in this month’s From the Field: tinyurl.com/2fsunbaw

Plus:

→ Hot tip: Stay safe during peak smoke season.
→ News and notes: Tree mortality has been high across the Southwest, a new study shows.
→ Treatment updates: Buffers abound from Ruidoso to Silver City to protect communities in the wildland-urban interface.
→ Wildfire outlook: Fire potential should increase this month as we enter a warmer, drier trend and fuels become more receptive.

All this and more in this month’s newsletter: mailchi.mp/state/nmfd-june-2026-newsletter

06/04/2026

We're entering peak wildfire season with a lot of fire activity already.

The National Interagency Fire Center predicts all but the eastern third of the state will experience above-normal wildfire potential as the state heads toward an expected peak in late June. After that, they predict conditions will improve beginning mid-July thanks to expected monsoons.

So far this year, 534 wildfires have ignited on state or private lands or grown large enough to impact state or private lands. That’s the highest number of wildfire ignitions between January and May since at least 2021, where between 249 and 389 wildfires ignited.

Several culprits are behind the unusually high number of ignitions. The biggest: Woefully low snowpack that afflicted New Mexico and the rest of the West. Dry lightning caused a spree of wildfires in the eastern plains earlier this spring, and ongoing drought has exacerbated dry conditions even in areas that don’t receive snowpack.

Forecasters are hopeful the monsoon will begin on time and be “productive” in reducing wildfire risk across the state. But in New Mexico, nothing is guaranteed until the skies open up.

“We’ve come to learn to expect any type of weather at any point in the year in New Mexico,” said George Ducker, communications manager.

Read the full story: sourcenm.com/2026/06/01/new-mexico-has-unusually-active-start-to-wildfire-season

06/03/2026

To better meet New Mexico’s urgent reforestation needs, the Forestry Division is re-energizing its popular Conservation Seedlings program.

Since the 1960s, this popular program has distributed millions of trees for conservation goals, including streambank restoration, erosion control and wildlife habitat improvement.

Beginning this fall, the new Seedlings for Reforestation program will guide high-demand seedling varieties like ponderosa pine and Douglas fir to fire-damaged areas to reduce long-term effects of erosion, flooding and degraded watersheds.

The new program will target the state’s limited seedling supply to the areas where it will have the most productive impact.

More than 7 million acres have burned across New Mexico this decade, leaving large areas with high-severity burn scars. These forests are unable to naturally regenerate, leading to persistent flooding that threatens communities.

“With limited seedlings and a changing climate, we need to prioritize getting the right tree to the right place at the right time,” said State Forester Laura McCarthy. “We need to think about how the landscape functions and act with urgency. Our new Seedlings for Reforestation program aims to do exactly that.”

Read the full release: https://mailchi.mp/state/seedling-program-reforestation

06/03/2026