Feds slow to find suitable housing for hundreds displaced by planned Forest Service burn that got out of control

The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire was easily visible from space. (NASA photo)

After two runaway fires set by the U.S. Forest Service destroyed 430 homes in rural New Mexico a year ago, the federal government acted so slowly that only a few people have been able to move into temporary housing, leaving others to dig into their own meager savings or stay on friends’ couches, reports Patrick Lohmann of Source New Mexico in partnership with ProPublica.

The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire "rode 74-mph wind gusts, engulfing dozens of homes in a single day as it tore through canyons and over mountains," Lohmann recounts. "The blaze became the biggest wildfire in the continental United States in 2022 and the biggest in New Mexico history. And it was the federal government’s fault: An ill-prepared and understaffed crew didn’t properly account for dry conditions and high winds when it ignited prescribed burns meant to limit the fuel for a potential wildfire."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency found temporary housing to 140 households, but "The federal government has acted so slowly and maintained such strict rules that only about a tenth of them have moved in," Lohmann reports. "EMA says most of the 140 households it deemed eligible for travel trailers or mobile homes — essentially, people whose uninsured primary residences sustained severe damage — have found 'another housing resource.' What the agency doesn’t say: For some, that resource is a vehicle, a tent or a rickety camper. It’s a friend or relative’s couch, sometimes far from home. It’s a mobile home paid for with retirement funds or meager savings."

Lohmann tells several stories of residents suffering from the lack of permanent housing, writing, "The fire upended a constellation of largely Hispanic, rural communities that have cultivated their land and culture in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for hundreds of years. Many residents can find their family names on land grants issued by Mexican governors in the 1830s. Now they’re dispersed across the region, even out of state."