“Leger Fernandez says Forest service made ‘outrageous’ errors in northern New Mexico fires”
Albuquerque Journal by Ollie Reed, Jr., July 8, 2024
SYNOPSIS
New Mexico Rep. Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) cites a U.S. Government Accountability Office report blaming the U.S. Forest Service practice of “prescribed burning” for starting the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire wildfire in 2022, the state’s largest and most destructive in recorded history.
CONTENT
FACT: “Leger Fernández’s remarks were made in response to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on Forest Service prescribed burns that ran wild, burning more than 341,000 acres…At least 160 homes and 900 other structures were destroyed.”
The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire spread as a result of the widespread and growing U.S. Forest Service practice of logging followed by prescribed and pile burning across the West.
EXAGGERATION: “It was New Mexico’s largest wildfire ever…”
While the fire appears to be the largest in the state’s recorded history, such documentation only goes back to the late eighteen hundreds, meaning the size and severity of wildfires over previous centuries is conjecture.
INACCURACY: “Ella Arellano, who lives in Holman, six miles northwest of Mora, did not lose her house. But the fires…destroyed the watershed above her property.”
Though it’s likely that the fire burned trees in nearby drainages, wildfires cannot “destroy” watersheds.
OMISSION: “Prescribed burns remain a major tool for limiting wildfire risk by reducing or modifying the distribution of trees, shrubs, needles and leaves that fuel such fires…”
Leaves out how nearly all prescribed burning occurs after “fuel reduction” logging. Also, makes no mention of the large and growing body of scientific evidence showing how such logging can actually increase the risk and severity of fire by opening forest stands to the drying and heating effects of sunlight and allowing wind to spread flames quicker to communities.
GRADES
BALANCE: A-
Includes the perspective of an elected official and two members of the public critical of the Forest Service along with quotes from the agency’s Chief. Leaves out all input from the ecological conservation community who question the need for and effectiveness of this logging and burning (almost always done together).
SCIENCE: C
While the article’s focus is criticism of how the Forest Service carried out its logging and burning, the reporter claims “prescribed burns remain a major tool for limiting wildfire risk” without citing any scientific findings nor mentioning how “fuel reduction” logging took place prior to the burning.
OBJECTIVITY: B-
The article focuses on the fact that the U.S. Forest Service is responsible for the 2022 wildfire, while uncritically promoting the agency narrative that logging followed by burning reduces risk of fire, implicitly endorsing the expansion of such practices.
FINAL GRADE: B
CONCLUSION
The article is an accurate, balanced report on Forest Service culpability for the largest and most destructive wildfire in New Mexico recorded history. However, the reporting entirely ignores any science either supporting or critiquing the need for and efficacy of such logging and burning in the first place. It also leaves out the agency’s preference for logging and burning as opposed to burning alone.
Eco-Integrity Alliance 