Wildfire-preparedness workshop tackles difficulties insuring homes

Apr. 27—Conditions are ripe for major wildfires in New Mexico, with an overpopulation of trees, abundance of dead or unhealthy trees and dried-out stands, arborist Chris Schaum said Saturday.

"We're primed to burn; we've been primed to burn for a long, long time," said Schaum, owner of the Santa Fe-based tree-management business Chris' Tree Service.

"It's kind of gloomy, but at the same time, I feel like we do have answers to be able to handle this," he said.

That answer: Ramping up individual and community-scale work to mitigate the spread of fires, speakers said at a fire-preparedness workshop Saturday at Christ Church Santa Fe.

The volunteer nonprofit Villages of Santa Fe and the Fire Adapted New Mexico Learning Network organized the workshop; the groups have put on an annual fire-preparedness workshop most years since 2018, Villages of Santa Fe co-founder Ann Church said.

About 50 people attended the event, a larger turnout than in the past, Mayor Alan Webber noted at the opening of the event.

"We know this is critical. We know that climate change is making it even more critical," Webber said. "I think it's a heightened awareness that we all need to have that being prepared is important."

After breakout groups focused on fire simulations around Santa Fe, assembling emergency supply kits and hardening homes against fire, the workshop featured a panel on how fires are affecting homeowners insurance in Santa Fe and across the state. The panel included Schaum; state Natural Resources Department Forestry Division spokesman George Ducker; and two bureau chiefs from the state Office of Superintendent of Insurance, Melissa Robertson and Elouisa "Lou" Macias.

Nationwide, insurance companies have been drastically raising premiums or pulling out of areas due to fire risk. The issue seems to have recently hit home for Santa Feans, many of whom have been facing policy nonrenewals, said panel moderator Madeleine Carey.

Schaum said he started to hear about insurance companies dropping customers around Santa Fe in about 2016.

That's because catastrophic losses from wildfires have become a matter of "not if but when," Robertson said. As a result, insurance companies need to spread their risk and take only some policies here, some policies there — not only in areas of high wildfire risk but also in towns, since embers can spread wildfire, she said.

"Yes, a company might be dropping you, but another company is willing to pick you up," Robertson said. She recommended people who lose homeowners insurance find an independent agent — who "can run you 30, 40, 50 quotes at a time" — to shop around among insurers.

Although the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance cannot mandate where insurance companies write policies, leaders in the office, for about the past year and a half, have been dedicating "90%" of their time to learning more about the science of fire and working one on one with insurers on the issue, Robertson added.

Nine insurance companies have completely pulled out of California. None have pulled out of New Mexico, Robertson said.

"We don't ... want to end up like California," Robertson said. "That is why it is so vital right now that OSI is working with the industry. We have meetings with them almost every other day."

The Office of Superintendent of Insurance has also assembled a team of people, including state forestry officials, the state Fire Marshal, Santa Fe city Fire Chief Jacob Black, arborists and other organizations to draft legislation that will help New Mexicans maintain insurance. The legislation would likely take "baby steps" toward requiring fire-safe building codes or other mitigation measures to make communities more resilient to fire.

"We are in a hard market where you might want to protect your land, you want to do mitigation on your land, but your neighbor does not, and we can't force them to," Robertson explained.

Schaum said more Santa Feans are beginning to act to mitigate fire.

"It's really become a reality for all of us," he said. "When people start to have to worry about not getting insurances and mortgages and all this stuff ... people actually want to get this stuff taken care of.

"It's not anything we need to panic about, but it's definitely something we need to work on as a community."