Elected officials host PNM town hall for wildfire awareness

By Lynn Janes

May 29, 2025, PNM held a town hall on wildfire awareness. PNM had asked Rep. Luis Terrazas and Commissioner Eddie Flores to host the event held at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center.

Bruce Ashburn opened up the event and explained the reason for the town hall and thanked everyone for attending. He also thanked the Chamber for the event space and Sabrina Pack, SkyWest Media, for publicizing the event. PNM had provided snacks and drinks for those attending and Ashburn thanked PNM. He thanked all the presenters that had come, some had driven a long way to attend. "I would like to thank everyone in the room that fights fires in any way shape or form. Guys we have some of the best firefighters in the country." They had already at the time of this meeting had five fires.

Ashburn had a big thank you to PNM for being involved in this meeting and for participating in meetings like this across their service territory.

Terrazas thanked everyone for attending. Although he would be moderating the event he had not been the only one but a number of people that came together to make it happen and had come together to answer question from the people. "We are all worried about wildfires." The residents have seen the devastation of these fires in northern New Mexico and last year Ruidoso. Terrazas said Harlan Vincent, a state representative of Ruidoso and a firefighter, said the fire had no mercy on anyone. "We all have to come together to solve these issues." He reiterated all the thanks that Ashburn had made but also thanked all the elected officials that had also attended from different municipalities.

Terrazas said he had just gone through his property and thinned it out. The public can do things to help, and the panel has come to answer questions and provide a short presentation. They would be doing presentations and then people could ask questions.

Last year they had a similar meeting and after he had gone home and thought about it he worked with a number of other representatives in the southwest corner to tackle some of the issues the public had at that time. Some of the issues they had identified would be interruption in power and how to deal with that. They also addressed nursing homes and people that needed oxygen or other medical purposes. Terrazas had introduced a bill that would be a tax credit of $5,000 for individuals that put in a generator or $10,000 for a business. They had fought hard for that bill but could not get it included in the budget.

Something Terrazas heard at the panel done the previous year had to do with archeological surveys being necessary for public lands. Before thinning could be done an archeological survey had to be done and because of the size of the state and a small number of archeologists it would make the process take a very long time. They had been able to pass a bill to assist in schooling so individuals could do the archeological surveys under an archeologist allowing for them to do more area faster. Terrazas thanked a number of people for their efforts and organizing the town hall.

Sen. Gabriel Ramos thanked Terrazas and Flores for putting the town hall together. He had run a bill to help people in some areas that have not been able to obtain home insurance or had been canceled due to the insurance industry categorizing New Mexico as a wildfire state. The bill didn't go through, but the insurance superintendent lifted the levels so some of the homes in forested areas could be insured. He said the insurance industry had not been happy, and he had worked with several other representatives and senators to put the bill forward.

They had passed a bill, SB 33, Wildfire Prepared Act. Now grants will be available for people to prepare their land for the summers when the wildfires happen. Some of the people in Ruidoso still had not had their claims settled so they introduced some bills to stop that problem and the insurance must settle claims within 90 days.

Ramos told people to feel free to call him. If people have bills they want introduced this would be a good time to talk about them.

Terrazas pointed out that Ramos is an insurance agent and he went against them at the past legislature, and they had not been happy with him.

Flores thanked everyone for coming out. He had received a number of calls from people living in Cliff, Gila, Buckhorn and Mule Creek. They had a lot of power outages. He understood how hard it could be and sometimes a life and death situation for people needing oxygen, dialysis, CPAP machines, etc. Stores can't process credit cards and a number of other problems. He had reached out to Kevin Cardoza, local government and community manager for PNM. Flores, Cardoza, Ramos, Terrazas and Commissioner Tom Shelley had come together to organize the town hall. "We're all supportive of the issues with power outages."

Flores thanked PNM for the meeting the previous night in Cliff. They had asked some tough questions. When they all left, they had their questions answered. In the Cliff meeting they had an audience member from California, and she had commented that this kind of thing, a meeting being put on by an organization like PNM, would never have happened in California. Hopefully the rain would come soon but they needed to be proactive. He asked that people feel free to reach out to him, other commissioners or the county manager with any concerns. "We are your voice. We will try to give you answers and solutions." He gave his cell phone number 575-574-7544

Roger Groves, Grant County fire chief, wanted to explain the ready set go program. The program has been used in Ruidoso, Greer and Springerville, Az. He felt is has been a good plan to have people ready. He addressed people looking at their property and preparing it by thinning the vegetation, removing dead or dying trees, shrubs, grasses and cleaning gutters. He said families needed to have a plan and be prepared. He spoke about having a ready box either by the door or in the vehicle. Be prepared to be gone for a few days. Everyone in the household needs to be part of the plan. Families might be in different places, so a plan needs to be made on where to meet.

The last part of the program would be the go. When it's time to go you need to go. Don't panic and stay calm but be prepared. If anxious leave before the go start heading out. Law enforcement would be coming to help people out. He recommended people in neighborhoods come together and identify people that would need help leaving their homes.

Lastly Groves wanted to see loads of brush and debris heading to the landfill every day. He said if people might need help, he knew of some people that could be of assistance. Staying home with a garden hose would not cut it when a fire was coming. When the time to go comes, people just need to go.

He had been asked to address restrictions. A lot of restrictions have been put in place. The restrictions will be very much the same for municipalities, state, and county lands. All have worked together. Law enforcement has been prepared to address these violations and restriction, and some citations have already been issued. The restrictions will be maintained as long as they have to. The conditions will determine when they will be lifted. He brought up something he had been talking about with one of the chiefs that whenever the carpet man comes and sets up on highway 180 it starts raining. Groves asked if anyone knew him to ask him to come and start working so the rains would start. He went back to being serious and said the restrictions would not go away until moisture levels reached a safer level.

The county resources consist of eight volunteer fire departments that make up about roughly 200 volunteers involved in the eight departments. They have 90 individual pieces of firefighting apparatus, from structure engines, water tenders and brush trucks.

Groves added he had a woodchipper program that could be rented with a small investment and some safety training. It would help people thin some of their vegetation. He asked for people to reach out to him.

Aaron Seavers, Silver City assistant fire chief, thanked everyone for coming and said, "I think this is great. It's proactive." He had been asked to address home hardening. It basically meant preparing your home in case of a wildfire and quite a few things could be done. He had created a pamphlet with the fire restrictions and a list of items that could be done to protect your home. "Fire is very dangerous and devastating for a community, as we saw in Ruidoso." He asked that people hold their neighbors accountable and show them the pamphlet. Some people say a spark can start a massive fire, but the flip side would be one home can make the difference for the fire department to have a fire under control. Fire Marshal Eloy Vasquez had a table at the town hall with more information.

Elizabeth Toney, Silver City/Glenwood district ranger, said they had been working to beef up their communication about a lot of things on the Gila National Forest. They have been trying to provide information as quickly as possible. "I have a very talented experienced group of firefighters that work for me, and they are ready to fight fire and have been already." They have had a lot of training and readiness reviews and have been doing an outstanding job. She said people could help by having their homes ready so it would be safer for the firefighters and make fighting the fire more efficient.

Toney said they have put a lot of emphasis on thinning. They have been thinning around people's homes on the Forest Service side. It's called the Wildland Urban Interface. They have done this for four years and have about 350 acres of mastication and 450 acers of hand thinning. Along with that they had done some prescribed burns in those areas. The state has been helping with the project, so they have been able to work faster. In the future, she has a 3,000 field break project for around Silver City and hoped to have it start in the fall. Toney mentioned a list of all the areas they had been doing thinning. They have heard with the new administration they will see some efficiencies done with executive orders but don't have any guidance at that time but will be incorporating it as soon as she can to make things quicker.

With regards to the cultural resources surveys they have a new agreement with the state that allows more efficiency with hazardous fuels reduction.

Pete Valenzuela spoke to the stage 2 fire restrictions. He had been doing this for 26 years, and this would be the first time he saw them do stage 2; it had always just gone to stage 1. This has been the driest he had ever seen it. Fire danger rating has been at the extreme level, and they have gone to preparedness level 4, it only goes to level 5. They have brought in a national prevention team. Recently the district has had a lot of events happen such as the bike race and continental divide trail days. It had a heavy influx of people coming in. One of the prevention techs had been going around during Easter and found 36 abandoned campfires. After the prevention team left it dropped to just one.

Wesley Gray, executive director of field ops for PNM, has been working with the wildfire mitigation program. They have seen conditions become drier and the drought conditions have become high and extreme. PNM had seen that power lines have become a bigger and bigger issue as the potential cause of wildfires. PNM has taken a proactive approach and developed a program to prevent that from happening.

The plan has had multiple stages. It started with an extensive inspection program started in 2022 and has continued into 2023 and 2024. They had done a top down view and alluded to people seeing helicopters flying around patrolling the lines inspecting all of the infrastructure. This had been to make sure everything was safe and not falling over. Last year they started a ground up assessment by running crews down the lines to make sure everything was structurally sound. The winds had started earlier than usual, and PNM had to put some protocols in place to prevent debris and other things becoming an issue with the lines. Most common thing people think about in the lines would be trees and animals, but they have seen metal roofs and tarps become stuck in the lines. Once a trampoline had been seen in the power lines. During wind events and red flag warnings PNM does not want to be the source of a catastrophic wildfire.

PNM has a couple of protocols now when they have high wind warnings or red flag warnings. Gray went over each one and what would cause them to shut the power down and hoped it would keep outages to the minimum.

He addressed those in the community with life support needs such as oxygen and dialysis and said they understand the potential impact of a power outage. He included community resources such as water, wastewater, fire suppression and communications. This would be why they would do what they could to keep the power on.

PNM wants to prevent anything from happening, so they started the power shut off program. They had only had to use it at this time once in northern New Mexico when they had 75 mph winds. He asked people to be prepared to leave if you have to and the outages may be a day or longer. They refreshed a program called Life Watch, so it allows people to sign up for it and have not only a message sent to them but a care giver.

Jon Selby, district fuel specialist at Las Cruces Bureau of Land Management (BLM), said Pinos Altos has always been a big part of the BLM in Grant County. It had become his focus especially after the Rico fire and they still have a lot of biomass on the ground even after 24, 25 years of fuel treatments in the area. They will be looking at implementing some prescribed fires in the area in the late fall.

Randy Varela, state fire marshal, gave an update on what his office does to support local fire stations and local communities. They have four bureaus, a training academy that trains fire fighters, code enforcement that overseas all the state buildings, fire investigations and fire support. Fire support has a team of six people that go throughout the state and inspect 718 fire departments.

The inspections make sure the departments meet all standards, have proper equipment, and have been trained properly. The fire marshal's office also funds the departments throughout the state. They fund class one through class ten, one being the best and 10 being the worst. The ISO, Insurance Services Office, a private company does the rating and that determines the funding received. ISO also sells this rating to the insurance companies, and it becomes part of what homeowners insurance will be in an area. Varela said three percent of funding comes from home insurance and last year they had been able to distribute $77 million to departments around the state. From the state they will be looking at funding about $100 million to local fire departments. "We do support the wildland efforts that these departments do. So, we want to use monies for the purchase of wildland equipment."

Abagail Plecki representing Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources, a division of New Mexico Forestry, said she is the community wildland fire defense grant coordinator. They had brought $39 million for the state in the first two cycles and have a total of 31 applications put up for the next cycle. She had been working with Scot Fuller, Grant County emergency manager, and had done the community wildfire protection plan update.

In her last presentation she had spoken to efforts of the fire planning task force and their recommendation to the legislature. They had been successful with three bills. She went over the three bills SB33, HB 175 and Senate Memorial 2 a wildfire study group. She touched some on all of them and how they would be helping New Mexico communities.

Terrazas said he had some comments and then he would turn it over to questions from the public. "I want you to know you have legislators that care about you and are working diligently to try and support the efforts of our community." The last session had been like a firestorm. They had excess monies and tried to have those spent on the community. He had 55 pieces of legislation he had worked on.

"All our legislators, representatives, senators, commissioners and council members care." They have been having good communication and have the education and information that will be needed for them to be successful. He referred to Rep. Harlan Vincent from Ruidoso and how much he had helped in these efforts.

Terrazas continued that the people had to take responsibility also. "I mean this as respectfully as I can. We all have to take responsibility for our own acreage." The public also needs to be vigilant. He spoke to a recent issue with an arsonist who had started fires in Silver City and Santa Clara. Terrazas had also lost an aunt and cousin that had died in a fire due to a mentally ill person about a year in a half earlier. He thanked Norm Wheeler, district attorney, for being able to keep this recent arsonist incarcerated.

"We need to help our neighbors, the ones that can't afford to clean their yard, maybe not just financially but physically." People may need some grant assistance. Terrazas brought this up so the panel could address it.

Ashburn said Scot Fuller had not been able to attend but sent a message. This is about emergency notifications when an incident occurs that can potentially endanger county residents or pose an imminent threat to life and or personal safety. Immediate emergency notification to community in the affected area would be imperative. Previously, this required people to register for warnings and alerts through code red. As of February 1, 2024, Grant County has been using IPAWS, which means Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. IPAWS is a tool developed through FEMA that allows public safety agencies to notify the public of disasters and allows for notifications to be sent to cell phones in designated areas. For example, Silver City, Bayard, Pinos Altos or the entire county. Most importantly, it doesn't require people to register in advance. People may have received a specific type of IPAWS alert in the past—the missing child alert. IPAWS will work in conjunction with the existing emergency alert system, code red.

IPAWS will be a primary means of notification, but the information will continually be posted on the county's website and official Facebook page. The Grant County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has also partnered with SkyWest Media to broadcast emergency messages on their four local radio stations. KNFT 102.9 FM, KNFT 950 AM, and 96.5 FM, and KSCQ 92.9 FM. The OEM has also partnered with the National Weather Service to broadcast non-weather related messages on the NOAA weather radio station frequency. Lastly, the OEM has partnered with WNNU to place emergency messages on their electronic marquees. Currently they have a message on the marquees about the Grant County fire restrictions.

Terrazas asked the panel to address the question about grants to help people clean their yards. He also spoke to people not obstructing the entities trying to fight the fires and provide support. The public can easily block them from doing their job. He cited the huge fire on Rosedale Road awhile back; the flames had been 100 to 200 feet high. The people had come so see what was happening and obstructed the work of the firefighters to put it out.

PNM covers about 1,000 miles of electric lines. Terrazas had a question. "You are in the business of power and how will you be impacted to reinvest money in power lines and poles when people are getting solar panels?" This had come from information he had learned while trying to find ways to provide generators to people during power outages. He thought people with solar panels would not need generators and he found that to be wrong. Solar panels put power back into the grid but during a power outage it has to be severed for safety.

Gray said people putting solar panels up does affect their revenue especially during the peak times. The demand constantly changes, people going from swamp coolers to air conditioning and electric vehicles. Everybody has been increasing their electric load over time and PNM has to adapt. Then they have the external pressures of increased costs of equipment needs such as copper and steel which has made things difficult. People need to have the ability to provide their own energy if they want to. Because of the Energy transition Act for New Mexico, they have been switching from fuel powered plants to solar and wind.

PNM has gone after rate filings because things keep going up and it puts pressure on the customer rates. From a system investment perspective, they had to halt certain areas allowing interconnections because they don't have the physical capacity in those lines to allow the interconnect. So, they have had to limit in some spots the amount of solar that can be put on, so they don't have too much back feeding and overloading the system. When a bunch of homes have solar it can overload the system and cause problems with the protection system and how they operate the grid. That has been why they have put some moratoriums in. They have had to invest more money in the infrastructure so they can allow more on the network.

He did address the solar panels only work when they're connected to the grid. So, when the grid has to be turned off the solar panels don't work. The only way they could function would be to have a battery backup system. Many people have been interested in propane or diesel generators because they work without the grid.

Terrazas went back to the people that could not afford financially or physically to clean their yard. He asked if anyone on the panel could address that. Plecki said first for people to visit their website Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources website www.enmnrd.nm.gov. Find the local district which will be the Socorro District and find the landowners assistance page. People will find a number of different grant opportunities. They also have nonfederal lands grants that comes from the US Forest Service that her office facilitates. The forest health initiative might have some grants. She continued with some other possibilities.

Terrazas turned to the audience that had questions for the panel.

An audience participant wanted to know if they would have assistance for job startups. It has been hard to find people to do clean up in yards. They also asked about expanding the seasonal firefighters to do some support outside the season.

Plecki said in terms of general maintenance and fire safety they hoped with the home hardening program that could help assist. The major thing they will be trying to build would be a zero zone, from the house out five feet needs to have a zero scape, with absolutely no combustible materials. Once that rolls out hopefully assistance will be available. For startup she said they could not do that but technically she thought providing equipment would be possible. Maybe a grey area they could work with. In regard to firefighters, they have been trying to build their capacity at the state level and want to keep the hot shot crews rolling on mitigation in the off season.

A resident addressed hardening your home and suggested to people to find this fire screen, stainless steel mesh, that could be put in every vent in the home. It will keep the embers out of the house. It can save your home. He had purchased his at Home Depot, $100 for 25 foot roll. He had also gone around town and asked that if be carried here.

A resident identified himself as Paul Horton and said he had seen this mess for a while, not allowing fires to burn and putting them out right away has just caused more fuels to build up since the 1940s. He had been all over the forest and said it had become a jungle out there. He had wanted a ranch and the only way to afford it would be to have a government lease from the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. "I wouldn't want it today if you gave it to me." Cows had been taken off the forest and heard they would be put back and thought that would be a good thing.

Terrazas pointed out that out of all the people on the panel no one had addressed the plans for animals.

Toney started with the grazing question. She thought for her district they had a little over forty allotments and only two have been vacant. As pointed out this year has been very dry, and grazing happens on the forest because they are multiple use.

Valenzuela admitted to the forest service suppressing fires for 100 years as spoken about earlier. In the 1990s the forest service took a proactive approach to manage fire. He had been part of it and managed a few hundred thousand acres. As budgets expand and contract and administration changes hands, they always have new issues. They have had times they could not manage fire because of either policies, administration changes or budget shortages. Right now would not be the time to manage fires due to fuel conditions and weather. He said for this year they would be suppressing and hoping for the best. Horton added that all those years of suppression had caused a monster.

Mayor Pro tem Guadalupe Cano, Silver City, had a question for the legislators Ramos and Terrazas. One of the issues faced each year by the municipality has been fireworks. The state legislature does not allow municipalities to ban all of them. The ones they can't ban have been the worst for fire safety. She gave the example of someone handing a sparkler to a toddler and then they throw it in a bush and the whole neighborhood can go up. "Is there anything the legislature is looking at doing to help municipalities and counties to get a little bit more control over that?"

Terrazas said the majority of the legislature resides in the metro communities and this has been a problem to get them to listen to the representatives from the rural areas. "We cannot legislate every single thing to go away but I don't mean we should not try." They have a lot of rules, regulations and statutes that exist that people break every day. Earlier it had been brought up that despite the fire restrictions they found 32 campfires left just recently. Rules already exist for this. "We have to work together as a community to teach our kids and each other how and what to be careful with."

He said he didn't know enough about the statute to say they needed to just ban fireworks across the state. Just because a rule has been made does not mean people will follow it and it will not be 100 percent. Terrazas felt that they all needed to work together to train and teach the youth along with some legislation.

Ramos like the distinction between the urban and rural divide because it has been a real problem. When in Santa Fe it does not seem to be a Republican-Democrat divide but an urban and rural divide. It makes it harder when they have fewer rural legislators than urban, because it becomes hard to pass bills.

Right now, would be the time to create bills because they will be coming together in their interim committees. He suggested he and Cano come together and see what they could come up with.

A resident wanted to ask about the woodchipper Groves spoke to. He has been tasked to help a number of families that don't have resources. He understood they had a backlog of people wanting to use it and wondered if they knew of others available and what the cost would be.

Groves said the county only had the one chipper and quoted the cost of $36 an hour. Plecki had a list of other choices but didn't have it with her currently. She also cited some grants that would be available for that and possibly the county could obtain funding for more chippers.

Nick Prince, Silver City town council, asked if the legislators would have any investment for the community infrastructure and referred to the Boston Hill fire. He wondered the feasibility of buried power lines. Terrazas said he didn't have an answer to that right now but handed it to PNM. Gray said that would be a very interesting question. The cost difference in trying to convert an overhead system to an underground system would be very expensive. The engineering team has been looking at other alternatives to maintain service to critical infrastructure such as hospitals and went over some of the ideas that had been looked at.

Gray went over all the mitigation work they had been doing and have continued to do. In the inspection process they had identified and replaced 200 poles in Grant Count. They had spent several million to expand right-aways 20 feet to give the lines more resiliency. Any trees dying that could fall on to the lines has been in the process of being removed.

A resident came on behalf of a nonprofit called End of the Road Ranch. They have about 40 horses on the property. He asked for recommendations on how to help the horses through an emergency situation.

Groves said they have a local emergency planning group with plans for evacuation of animals such as horses, cattle, dogs and cats. The rodeo grounds will be one place the animals can be taken and given assistance. He thought some of the veterinarian clinics would also be involved. The group meets the first Wednesday of every month at 3:30 pm at Western New Mexico University.

Rudy Bencomo, Silver City town council, had a question for Ramos. He had received a call from a constituent who really had been upset because she had recently moved here and received a letter telling her she no longer had insurance. She lived somewhere off Little Walnut Road. She described her home as being the biggest home in Silver City. He wanted to know what he could do. Ramos had spoken earlier to a bill that would have helped that situation, but it didn't pass. However the insurance superintendent had made a change in the rules, with caps on the insurance being $356,000. People like her can obtain insurance on their home but only for the $356,000 through the New Mexico Fair Plan. This plan has been provided by the state but actually paid for by the bigger companies and by premiums collected. Those limits were then raised to $750,000. The superintendent said they currently have been running the numbers and will be trying to make it a really fair price and be available June 1, 2025. Any insurance agent in town should be able to offer the New Mexico Fair Plan to any resident who said they had just been notified their insurance had been canceled. Ramos said he had received a notice two months earlier his insurance had been canceled.

Terrazas thanked all of the panelists and all the people who had attended.

As a legislator, he wanted people to understand the process and referred to Cano's question. Even if it could be done as soon as possible it would technically be two years at a 60-day session. They cannot introduce bills unless it will be a 60-day session and those happen every other year. He just wanted everyone to have a perspective. He added he had a policy he didn't answer questions if he does not know the answer. "Nobody knows everything about everything. I don't pretend to." He said he would tell people he didn't know but would look into it. He didn't want to give a false understanding of what his position would be. "I take into consideration everything you say and the importance of protecting our public safety and our families. At the same time, I don't think it is right to say something to make you go away by just telling you what you want to hear."

Terrazas added they have 112 legislators that have to be convinced along with a governor. They go with a lot of legislation to support rural New Mexico, but that would be why it doesn't make it.

He thanked everyone that had made the town hall possible.