NM Forests Painfully Vulnerable To Warming; Controlled Burns & Clearing Down 53% Under Shitstain Admin [View all]

Last edited Sun Nov 9, 2025, 08:50 AM - Edit history (1)

An analysis of U.S. Forest Service data by a wildland firefighter advocacy group shows that wildfire mitigation efforts in New Mexico— including prescribed burns and other hazardous fuel treatments—are down by 53% since President Donald Trump took office in January.

When compared to yearly averages over the Biden Administration, the data shows that the U.S. Forest Service is significantly behind on wildfire mitigation in the country’s national forests. In 2023, for example, the federal government treated just under 203,000 acres of forest for flammable fuels ranging from dead trees and dried up brush to grasses and twigs in New Mexico alone. In 2025, that number dropped to just over 68,000.

“The reason we want to thin and prescribe burn and do the pile burning is because we want a healthy forest, and we want to keep it safe so we don’t lose so when there’s a fire, we don’t lose the entire forest,” said Bobbie Scopa, executive secretary of the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. Scopa also spent 45 years as a firefighter.

Overall, the advocacy group’s data analysis found that the crucial hazardous fuels reduction work done by the Forest Service was down 38% in 2025 compared with the same period over the previous four calendar years. A crucial part of forest ecosystems, land managers use hazardous fuels reduction such as thinning and controlled burns to curb the severity and intensity of future forest fires that could spread to nearby communities.

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https://sourcenm.com/2025/11/06/wildfire-mitigation-in-new-mexico-is-down-53-since-trump-took-office/