2022 Annual Report: Pueblo Parks Fire

At A Glance

• 190 acres of thinning piles burned
• 20 forest plots monitored for restoration effects
• 6 lightning fires monitored and suppressed
• 16 major fire events managed by helitack crew

Fire managers conduct a prescribed burn in Cajete Meadow.

NPS/L. Trader

Pueblo Parks Fire serves four National Park Service units across northern New Mexico: Bandelier National Monument, Valles Caldera National Preserve, Pecos National Historical Park, and Fort Union National Monument. This team conducts forest restoration efforts, prescribed burns, and firefighting operations at these sites.

Pueblo Parks Fire began 2022 with a skeleton crew that worked double-time to uphold science-based wildland fire management at Valles Caldera National Preserve. We then hired a Fire Management Officer who secured funding for 6 new positions, which will greatly improve our fire program’s capacity going forward.

The Interagency Helitack Crew assisted on 16 total wildfires in 2022, including 12 initial attacks and 4 large incident assignments like Cerro Pelado. Our team conducted inspections on ~400 acres of thinning projects in Banco North, Cerro Pinon, and Garita and conducted pile burns on 190 acres on San Antonio Mountain and Seco North. We also monitored and suppressed 6 lightning fires on the Preserve.

The Pueblo and Four Winds Parks Fire Ecology Program collected and entered data on 20 forest restoration plots at Valles Caldera. We also contributed forest habitat data for threatened and endangered species surveys. Perhaps most notably, we drafted a Fire Management Plan (FMP) that emphasizes public safety, risk management, ecosystem restoration, research/monitoring, and partnerships in future wildland fire management at Valles Caldera National Preserve. The draft FMP will be available for public comment in 2023.