Doña Ana County Community Wildre Protection Plan May 2012 DOÑA ANA COUNTY COMMUNITY WILDFIRE PROTECTION PLAN Prepared for 1170 N. Solano, Suite 0 Las Cruces, New Mexico 88001 Prepared by SWCA® ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANTS 5647 Jefferson Street NE Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109 Telephone: 505-254-1115; Fax: 505-254-1116 www.swca.com Victoria Amato, M.S. SWCA Project No. 21448 May 2012 Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Executive Summary For millennia fire has been an integral process in the maintenance of Southwest ecosystems, but with the growth of communities into the wildland urban interface, fire is increasingly seen as a threat to life and property. In recent years a number of large fires have destroyed homes throughout the Southwest, raising public awareness for the need to mitigate fire effects and plan for improving a community’s resilience to this natural phenomenon. This document has been developed to address wildfire threat to communities in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and it provides recommendations to abate catastrophic wildfire and minimize its impacts to communities. Doña Ana County is a moderately populated area in a region that has maintained an extensive agricultural base. Although much of Doña Ana County’s population has become fully aware of the prevalence of wildland fire, the poorly perceived low risk of fire in desert grassland communities makes people ill-equipped in the event of a large- scale fire event. The importance of public education and outreach in conjunction with recommended physical actions to reduce hazardous fuels are highlighted in this plan. A group of multi-jurisdictional agencies (federal, state, and local), organizations, and residents have joined together as a Core Team to develop this plan, the Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (DACCWPP). The purpose of the DACCWPP is to assist in protecting human life and reducing property loss due to wildfire throughout Doña Ana County. The plan is the result of a community-wide wildland fire protection planning process and the compilation of documents, reports, and data developed by a wide array of contributors. This plan was compiled in 2011–2012 in response to the federal Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) of 2003. The DACCWPP meets the requirements of the HFRA by: 1) Having been developed collaboratively by multiple agencies at the state and local levels in consultation with federal agencies and other interested parties. 2) Prioritizing and identifying fuel reduction treatments and recommending the types and methods of treatments to protect at-risk communities and pertinent infrastructure. 3) Suggesting multi-party mitigation, monitoring, and outreach. 4) Recommending measures and action items that residents and communities can take to reduce the ignitability of structures. 5) Facilitating public information meetings to educate and involve the community to participate in and contribute to the development of the DACCWPP. The planning process has served to identify many physical hazards throughout Doña Ana County that could increase the threat of wildfire to communities. The public also has helped to identify community values that it would most like to see protected. By incorporating public and Core Team input into the recommendations, treatments are tailored specifically for Doña Ana County to be sensitive to local agricultural practices. The DACCWPP emphasizes the importance of collaboration among multi-jurisdictional agencies in order to develop fuels mitigation treatment programs to address wildfire hazards. Doña Ana County has a committed team of career and SWCA Environmental Consultants May 2012 Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan volunteer firefighters, who work arduously to protect the life and property of Doña Ana County citizens, but without homeowners taking on some of the responsibility of reducing fire hazards in and around their own homes, these resources are severely stretched. A combination of homeowner and community awareness, public education, and agency collaboration and treatments are necessary to fully reduce wildfire risk. It is important to stress that this document is an initial step in educating the public and treating areas of concern, and should serve as a tool in doing so. The DACCWPP should be treated as a live document to be updated approximately every two years. The plan should be revised to reflect changes, modifications, or new information that may contribute to an updated DACCWPP. These elements are essential to the success of mitigating wildfire risk throughout Doña Ana County and will be important in maintaining the ideas and priorities of the plan and the communities in the future. SWCA Environmental Consultants May 2012 Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Table of Contents 1.1 Overview of Community Wildfire Protection Plans ................................................... 1 1.2 Need for a CWPP ........................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Goal of a CWPP .......................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Planning Process ......................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Core Team ................................................................................................................... 5 1.6 Project Area ................................................................................................................ 5 1.7 Public Involvement ..................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Location and Geography ............................................................................................. 9 2.2 Population ................................................................................................................. 11 2.3 New Mexico Climate ................................................................................................ 11 2.4 Doña Ana County Climate ........................................................................................ 12 2.5 Vegetation ................................................................................................................. 14 2.6 Historic Conditions and Present Changes in Fire-adapted Ecosystems.................... 16 2.7 History and Land Use ............................................................................................... 17 3.1 Wildland Urban Interface ......................................................................................... 19 3.2 Fire History ............................................................................................................... 22 3.3 Challenges for Future Restoration Efforts ................................................................ 26 3.4 Fire Regimes and Fire Regime Condition Classes ................................................... 26 3.5 Fire Management Policy ........................................................................................... 27 3.6 Fire Response Capabilities ........................................................................................ 33 3.7 International Urban-Wildland Interface Code of the International Code Council ... 36 3.8 Federal Treatments.................................................................................................... 36 4.1 Purpose ...................................................................................................................... 39 4.2 Fire Behavior Model ................................................................................................. 39 4.3 Composite Risk/Hazard Assessment ........................................................................ 46 4.4 Community Risk/Hazard Assessments ..................................................................... 48 4.5 Public Outreach ......................................................................................................... 73 4.6 Community Values at Risk ....................................................................................... 76 5.1 Recommendations for Fuels Reduction Projects ...................................................... 81 5.2 Fuel Treatment Methods ........................................................................................... 88 5.3 Recommendations for Public Education and Outreach ............................................ 91 5.4 Recommendations for Reducing Structural Ignitability ........................................... 97 5.5 Recommendations for Improving Firefighting Capabilities ................................... 101 SWCA Environmental Consultants i May 2012 Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan 6.1 Identify Timeline for Updating the DACCWPP ..................................................... 106 6.2 Implementation ....................................................................................................... 106 6.3 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 106 SWCA Environmental Consultants ii May 2012 Doña Ana County Community Wildfire Protection Plan List of Figures Figure 1.1. Project location map. ..................................................................................................7 Figure 2.1. Doña Ana County land ownership. ..........................................................................10 Figure 2.2.