Slash pile burns planned in Carson National Forest with stepped-up monitoring

Nov. 29—Numerous slash piles will be burned in the Carson National Forest soon to take advantage of the cold, damp weather, and fire managers will determine how much aerial monitoring is needed to ensure the smoldering piles don't later ignite into a blaze.

U.S. Forest Service crews gathered fallen branches, stumps and woody debris from tree thinning operations into piles to be burned at about a dozen sites in Northern New Mexico.

Crews could begin pile burning near N.M. 150 from Valdez to the Taos Ski Valley area as early as Friday. Piles near San Cristobal also are being considered.

Fire managers assess the weather and how moist the slash and landscape are in each location before carrying out a prescribed burn.

"The exact timing of each project will depend on weather, site conditions and available personnel," Zach Behrens, a spokesman for the Carson National Forest, wrote in an email.

Controlled fires also are planned for Canjilon, El Rito, Hopewell Lake, Las Trampas, Ojo Sarco, Red River and Tres Piedras, Behrens wrote.

The Forest Service is requiring more vigilant monitoring of these planned fires, including from drones, after a torched slash pile smoldered underground for months through winter weather and flared into the Calf Canyon Fire.

That blaze merged with the Hermits Peak Fire, which had blown out of control during a prescribed burn, forming the biggest wildfire in the state's recorded history.

The inferno destroyed several hundred homes and scorched 341,000 acres. That led to the Forest Service chief ordering a pause in prescribed burns until the agency could revise policies for how to conduct the planned fires more safely as climate change makes the landscape drier and the weather more unpredictable.

Prescribed burns have recently resumed, with added safeguards such as extended aerial monitoring.

The agency's Southwest region has 22 drones it can deploy for aerial monitoring. Twenty of them have infrared systems to detect residual heat in places where prescribed burns were conducted. Two are equipped with standard cameras.

The drones assist with various projects across 11 forests in New Mexico and Arizona, Behrens wrote.

In October, as a crew was thinning trees and piling slash in a wooded area near Hyde Memorial State Park for a wintertime burn, the supervisor described how monitoring these fires has indeed intensified because of the historic wildfire.

Previously, someone would check the site sporadically after the flames subsided, said Rian Ream, a Forest Service fire management specialist.

A full crew now monitors a pile burn for days, even weeks, he said. After that, an infrared drone typically is launched about once a week to check for lingering heat on the ground.

A drone is sent up until no more heat is detected, Ream said.

Behrens noted in his email drones aren't launched automatically.

Managers decide whether to use infrared drones during the initial monitoring of the fire. If they determine the drones are needed to validate information about a smoldering pile's lingering heat — or that it might pose a threat to containment lines — they'll order the equipment, Behrens wrote.

"Each prescribed fire is different and requires a unique set of tools," Behrens wrote. "Fire managers determine which tools to use on each prescribed fire depending on the complexity of the burn and the availability of resources."

Officials might also decide helicopters and planes are needed to surveil burn areas, he added.

The first two sites slated for slash-pile burns border developed areas, forming what's known as a wildland-urban interface, Behrens wrote.

Both are within the Enchanted Circle Landscape, which the agency deems a priority for reducing wildfire risks to communities, critical infrastructure and sensitive landscape within 1.5 million acres of the Carson forest, he added.

Despite the stepped-up monitoring, some New Mexico residents and conservation groups remain uneasy about prescribed burns, even as state and federal forest managers insist burning excess vegetation and woody debris helps prevent big wildfires.

"Agency officials tell us last year's wildfires, caused by their treatments, are proof that our forests need even more of the same treatments," Sarah Hyden, co-founder of the Forest Advocate, wrote in a July opinion piece published in The New Mexican. "Also, they tell us climate change primarily caused the wildfires, and the fires would have happened whether they ignited them or not. No, they wouldn't have."

But a regional watershed advocacy group welcomed the Carson forest pile burns, saying in a statement they were a necessary protective measure.

"We're thrilled to see the Forest Service and its partners continue to make progress in protecting the forests and watersheds that our communities rely on," said J.R. Logan, Taos County Forest and Watershed's program manager.