Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández (NM-03) sent a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz demanding answers about the agency’s decision-making and response to the devastating Laguna Fire that continues to burn across Rio Arriba County. 

In the letter, the Congresswoman makes clear that this fire is not just about acres burned. It’s about trust burned. It’s about the lives and legacies of the people of Rio Arriba and New Mexico.

On June 30, Forest Service staff informed the Congresswoman’s office that, after a lightning strike ignited the fire, the agency “decided to not immediately contain the fire. Instead, the Forest Service would let the fire burn in order to further the agency’s forest management goals—essentially treating it as a controlled burn, not a wildfire.”

The Congresswoman noted that “the blaze killed and maimed livestock in its path, devastating the livelihoods of local ranchers who have grazed cattle on French Mesa and other adjacent forest lands for over a century.”

“These Forest Service grazing permittees have shared photos of charred, deceased cattle, and live cattle who have sustained burns severe enough that they are unable to see, nurse their calves, or even stand,” she continued. “These disturbing reports only account for a small portion of herds that are still unaccounted for.”

Leger Fernández posed a series of urgent questions to the Forest Service, including:

• Why was the strategy of full containment not a top priority?

• Did recent Forest Service staff reductions affect the agency’s response?

• What communication occurred with local ranchers whose cattle grazed in the fire area?

• What compensation is available for ranchers who have lost livestock?

“The livestock in these herds are more than mere farm animals,” wrote Leger Fernández. “They are the livelihood of our rural communities in New Mexico, and represent the lifeblood of our entire way of life in Rio Arriba County.”

She also expressed concern for historic homesteads, a church, and a cemetery threatened by the fire, and called into question whether they were considered in the agency’s fire planning decisions. “As New Mexico has painfully learned from the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, New Mexicans will feel the damage from this fire for generations to come. The forests that have burnt to ashes are integral to the culture, history, and economy of the communities embedded in them,” she warned.

The Congresswoman concluded by saying that she had “hoped that the Forest Service could make strides in the long process of restoring the community’s trust” after the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire but “This incident indicates the Forest Service is failing.”

The full letter is available HERE.

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