The Calf Canyon Fire Review: an Indictment of the Forest Service’s Land Management Strategy

Burning piles in the Gallinas Canyon Piles Prescribed Burn 2022 unit on January 12, 2022, Santa Fe National Forest. Photo: USDA Forest Service

In April of 2022, three wildfires were ignited in the Santa Fe National Forest by three separate US Forest Service escaped prescribed burns. 378,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest, Carson National Forest and private lands were burned. As a result of the two larger of these fires, the Calf Canyon Fire and the Hermits Peak Fire, entire communities were catastrophically impacted – 900 structures including 340 homes were burned down, thousands of people were displaced, and a traditional way of life was forever altered. Three people died in the aftermath of the fire from post-fire flooding. The cost of recovery efforts will be well over $5 billion. It is unknown how much conifer regeneration will occur on the approximately 82,000 acres that burned at high severity.

Although a review of the causes of Hermits Peak Fire was released in June of 2022, I had been waiting for two and a half years for the analysis of the more impactful Calf Canyon Fire to be released. It was strangely delayed.

As most know, the Forest Service prescribed burn that ignited the Hermits Peak Fire was a broadcast burn, set during a New Mexico spring high wind pattern with red flag warnings in effect in nearby areas. This prescribed fire escaped due to winds and dry vegetation, and it was declared a wildfire on April 6. The Calf Canyon Fire was ignited by piles of thinning debris that had been burned during the winter and had not been fully extinguished. Some of the smoldering piles flared up months later in the spring winds. By the time the Calf Canyon Fire was declared a wildfire on April 19, the Hermits Peak Fire had been considered to be contained. However, the winds also fanned up the Hermits Peak Fire again.

The two fires proceeded to burn side-by-side to the northeast with the prevailing winds, and then merged during another major wind event on April 23. The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire continued until late June, at which point it had burned over 533 square miles within three counties.

Map showing the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fire perimeters on April 23, when they were starting to merge. USDA Forest Service

Recently, the Forest Service quietly released its review of the Calf Canyon Fire. The implications are stunning and yet unsurprising to conservationists who have been critical of the forest management strategy of aggressive cutting and over-burning for years. There was clearly human error involved, but what is most apparent is that the basic paradigm the Forest Service is currently employing to “manage” forests is highly flawed and backfiring – and in the case of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, it backfired spectacularly.

The Forest Service implemented the prescribed burns that ignited the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire largely out of concern for the City of Las Vegas’ water system and water quality. The Calf Canyon fire review states “In May of 2000, the Viveash Fire highlighted the vulnerability of the city’s water system when a small portion of the wildfire burning in the Cow Creek drainage burned into the Gallinas Canyon Watershed. This high-severity wildfire resulted in dramatic impacts to the Las Vegas, New Mexico city water quality.” In 2006, in order to protect the Las Vegas water system from further impacts, the agency proposed and then later proceeded with implementation of the Gallinas Municipal Watershed Wildland Urban Interface Project. The primary purpose of the Project was to reduce the severity of future wildland fires by aggressively cutting mixed conifer and applying prescribed fire. The Project Decision states that the potential for an escaped prescribed burn was one of three key issues.

The ranger who signed the project decision told me that he did not want broadcast prescribed burns included in the project plan because he believed it was too risky. He said that he wanted the post-cutting debris management to include only pile burns and chipping. However, he was under pressure from Forest Service higher ups to include broadcast burns in the project plan, to the extent that he believed his career was on the line if he did not. He had a family to support, and so he complied.

The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire occurred due to escaped prescribed burns resulting from the implementation of this project, and it ultimately caused much more destruction to Las Vegas water quality than did the Viveash Fire. The fire burned extensive areas of the Gallinas watershed, the primary source for the city’s water, and contaminated it with ash and sediment. The contamination is still ongoing and very expensive to contend with.

A primary “lesson learned” provided by the Calf Canyon Fire review team was that the aggressive mechanical thinning opened up the tree canopy, exposing the forest floor to more solar radiation. This resulted in an increased rate of snowpack evaporation and snowmelt – thereby drying out the treated landscapes. Additionally, the review states that the open canopy may have increased “windthrow,” which means that trees which were formerly structurally supported by nearby trees were blown over in strong winds. The downed trees provided more fuel on the ground that spread fire from the burning piles.

A 2018, and subsequent 2021, wind event resulted in additional downed timber in the Gallinas Pile Burn Unit. Note the broken stems; these were broken off in the wind events. This picture does not depict the snow conditions the day of ignition. Photo: USDA Forest Service

Such unintended consequences are what conservation organizations and scientists had been warning of. Further drying out forests while the climate is becoming both hotter and drier is not a sound approach. Aggressively dismantling existing forest structures in an effort to create “healthy” and fire-resistant forest has serious side effects, and the Calf Canyon Fire review demonstrates that it’s not necessarily possible to compensate for such effects.

The review states that the Forest Service followed “lessons learned” from a prior pile burn escape in the same area in 2018 by carrying out the pile burns in January, and making sure there was a continuous snowpack around the burn piles. Burning piles under such conditions was much better than burning when conditions were dry, but was not sufficient to prevent a wildfire in 2022 that was exponentially larger and hotter than the 2018 pile burn escape.

The Hermits Peak Fire review states that the Forest Service felt compelled to complete the prescribed burn that ignited that fire after numerous delays, despite clearly marginal burn conditions. The delays included government shutdowns, the global pandemic, and a court injunction due to the Forest Service’s non-compliance with Mexican Spotted Owl regulations. The Calf Canyon Fire review states that a primary factor in the Forest Service’s inability to contain the spreading fire from the burn piles early on was a lack of resources both for monitoring burn piles for escaping fire, and for fire suppression. This incapacity was largely due to the already limited resources having been taken up by the Hermits Peak Fire.

In the Forest Service’s January 2022 publication, “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests,” the agency made its case for the strategy of greatly increasing logging and burning forests, up to four times the current levels in some areas. This mandate was fiscally supported by Congress through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with 3.5 billion dollars allocated for “forest management.” Yet somehow the Forest Service continues to be understaffed and under equipped. It’s simple math – the agency can’t safely expand the amount and frequency of forest cutting and burning treatments without a corresponding increase in personnel and equipment.

During the two weeks prior to the declaration of the Calf Canyon Fire, the escaping burn piles were being monitored by aerial overflights, utilizing infrared heat-detecting technology. The data obtained from these overflights was not enough to prevent the Calf Canyon Fire from breaking out in the New Mexico spring high winds. The Calf Canyon Fire Review contains the recommendation that “Where feasible, investigate and utilize new remote sensing technologies (remote cameras and software) for monitoring pile burning.” Currently there are very few monitoring overflights per year in the Santa Fe National Forest due to the lack of personnel and equipment, and infrared heat-detecting technology is limited and cannot identify heat deep under piles or down in the ground where smoldering can persist for months.

While I was waiting for the Calf Canyon Fire review to be released, I mused about why the Forest Service did not completely extinguish all the burn piles in early April, when some of the piles were known to be spreading fire – knowing that in this region high winds are the norm in April. The review provided some insight into my question.

The review describes the intense winds during the incident. “April 9th was the beginning of a very windy and dry period with Red Flag Warnings issued almost every day through April 22nd.” The Calf Canyon Incident Commander described the circumstances under which they were attempting to extinguish the burning piles:

“We found two to three smoldering stump holes burning that were interior. We opened them up and worked on them and cold trailed the area (feeling for heat with hands and digging out any live spots) to be sure they were completely dead out.” The IC observed that there was “smoke below the soil”, from underground roots and stumps. Resources gridded up and back on hands and knees through the fire area making six passes. Ash pelted their faces each time they would turn to look back…. “Every time I turned my head to talk to those behind me, a cloud of ash would hit me in the face because the wind was blowing so hard”….“I still have what I call Calf Canyon cough from that day.”

Conditions during the incident were such that the situation quickly became unmanageable, despite the intensive efforts of those on the ground. Fire was spreading underground along tree roots and surfacing as the winds fanned the flames. This points to the inherent risks of implementing pile burns in this dry and windy region.

The Calf Canyon Fire review makes it clear that treating dry forests in this region with aggressive cutting and burning may have many more adverse consequences than benefits. In the past 25 years, the majority of acres burned in the Santa Fe National Forest were ignited by either Forest Service or National Park Service escaped prescribed burns.

An additional consequence of the Forest Service continuing to go forward with widespread and aggressive fuels treatments is the increasing mistrust and hostility from the public. During the past two falls, the agency had intended to implement a prescribed burn in the North Aztec Springs area, just outside of Santa Fe. This burn would take place near a development of homes. Local residents went to meetings with the Forest Service about the potential burn, expressing high levels of fear and anger. During the fall of 2023, conditions were very wrong for such a burn, with strong winds, legacy slash piles remaining unburned in the area, and the only egress in case of a prescribed burn escape partially blocked by utility work. Residents were appalled that after the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, the Forest Service would even consider implementing a burn under such risky conditions. This past fall, conditions seemed much better, but this year’s meeting about the burn was just as contentious, if not more so, than last year’s. The burn was again postponed.

At this point it appears that the Forest Service intends to go forward with largely the same forest management strategies as before the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire impacted forest and residents so severely. However, a lesson learned from the Calf Canyon Fire review team was, “As landscapes, or stands, become further removed from their normal range of historical variability (RHV), incrementally changing the stand structure, albeit more expensive, is more prudent than dramatic shifts. Several entries may be required to achieve the desired result.” This recommendation indicates that the Forest Service is at least beginning to understand that the sheer amount and intensity of treatments they have been implementing are a serious risk to both forests and local communities. Aggressive treatments are a “shock to the system” that undermines forest heath.

Since the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire, there are new procedures in place and generally more caution being applied to planning of treatments, but the fundamental strategy of aggressively removing large amounts of biomass from dry forests, and then burning at overly-frequent intervals, has not been substantially re-examined. This strategy must be reconsidered from the roots up – the warming climate requires this. If cutting and burning treatments are found to be genuinely indicated in some situations, such treatments must be done with an understanding of the impacts and risks to the specific ecosystem being considered for treatment. It’s critical that sufficient canopy cover and natural understory be left remaining, so that the treated forest ecosystems will retain moisture instead of drying out and becoming even more flammable. Conservation strategies should be utilized to assist forest ecosystems in retaining moisture.

It is incumbent upon the Forest Service to work together with conservation organizations and conservation scientists to develop a holistic land management strategy that truly protects both forests and communities. The stakes are too high to do less.

Burned Area Emergency Response specialist assessing soil burn severity in Tecolote Creek Headwaters, within the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn area. Photo: Inciweb.

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