A small team of volunteers spent a few hours scrambling across fire-ravaged mountainsides, planting hundreds of seedlings as part of a monumental recovery effort that has been ongoing following the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history.
The Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon blaze was spawned in 2022 by a pair of botched prescribed burns that federal forest managers intended to lessen the threat of catastrophic fire in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Instead, large swaths of northern New Mexico were reduced to ash and rural communities were upended.
It rained overnight, making for perfect conditions for the volunteers in the mountains near the community of Mora. It was just enough to soften the ground for the group’s shovels on Saturday.
“The planting was so easy that we got done a little early and ran out of trees to plant that day. So it was a good day,” said David Hernandez, a stewardship ecologist with The Nature Conservancy, which is partnering with the Hermit’s Peak Watershed Alliance on the project.
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Nearly 400 ponderosa pine seedlings were placed in spots identified by the U.S. Forest Service as high priorities, given the severity of the burn. Those locations are mostly areas where not a single live tree was left standing.
It’s here where land managers, researchers and volunteers hope the seedlings will form islands of trees that can help regenerate more trees by producing their own seeds over time.
The Nature Conservancy used donations to purchase a total of 5,000 seedlings. New Mexico Highlands University is contributing another 3,500 seedlings.
The trees will be monitored to gauge success.
Researchers at New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center in Mora are experimenting with drought-hardening some seedlings to prepare them for the warmer and drier conditions they could face when they put down roots in burn scars. That means the plants are watered less frequently to make them more drought tolerant.
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Owen Burney, the center’s director, said his team has yet to scale up the number of drought-conditioned seedlings, but more will be ready to plant in the spring.
The Hermit’s Peak Watershed Alliance team was on its way up the mountain again Monday to do more work. They will continue daily through early October, with a couple more weekend planting sessions for interested volunteers.
The goal is to get the seedlings in the ground before the first freeze.
There have been days when 20 volunteers have been able to plant around 1,000 trees, said Joseph Casedy, who works with alliance.
“It’s strength in numbers,” he said, acknowledging that repeatedly bending down to drop the trees into their holes before compacting the surrounding soil can be fatiguing work.
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Burney, Hernandez and others say there’s a need to bolster the infrastructure required to develop seed banks, grow seedlings and do post-fire planting as wildfires have decimated large swaths of the U.S.
This year alone, more than 11,460 square miles (29,681 square kilometers) have been charred, outpacing the 10-year average. The National Interagency Fire Center also notes that there have been delays in reporting actual acreage burned given the “very high tempo and scale” of fire activity across the nation over recent months.
In northern New Mexico, reseeding started soon after the flames were dying down in 2022 as crews began working on mitigating erosion and flood damage within a burn scar that spanned more than 534 square miles (1,383 square kilometers) across three counties. In the first phase, federal agencies were able to seed about 36 square miles (93 square kilometers) and spread mulch over thousands of acres more.
In the last two years, tens of thousands of more acres have been seeded and mulched, and sediment catchments, earthen diversions and other flood control structures have been built at countless sites. Still, runoff from heavy storms the last two summers have resulted in damage.
There are certainly patches of ground that aren’t taking seed because they were burned so severely, and Casedy said it will take more time and funding to address problems in those areas. But he said other spots are bouncing back, providing some hope.
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“Ground cover is looking a lot better this year,” he said. “At the place I’m standing right now, there’s 10-foot-tall aspens coming in.”
NM FAST (New Mexico Federal and State Technology) is now accepting applications for a free space-sector accelerator cohort designed to help New Mexico-based technology companies compete for federal funding through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The cohort targets founders and researchers pursuing grants from NASA, Space Force and related federal agencies, with programming set to launch July 21.
The cohort will admit six to 10 New Mexico companies and run for 10 to 12 weeks, meeting in weekly sessions of approximately one and a half to two hours. Programming covers the full arc of federal commercialization strategy, including space-sector SBIR/STTR opportunities and federal funding pathways, proposal development for technical narratives and commercialization components, federal procurement positioning and agency discovery, capital strategy and follow-on funding options, and transition planning from Phase I to Phase II awards. Participants also receive targeted one-on-one advisory support throughout the program. The cohort is offered at no cost to accepted companies.
The program is open to companies at both the pre-award and early-award stages. The majority of cohort seats are designed for Phase 0 companies preparing to submit Phase I SBIR/STTR applications to NASA or Space Force. A limited number of seats are available for Phase I awardees working toward Phase II readiness and Phase III transition planning.
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“New Mexico has a deep base of research and a growing pipeline of founders ready to translate that work into companies that can compete for federal R&D dollars,” said Carlos Murguia, director of the Technology and Innovation Gateway at Arrowhead Center. “This cohort focuses specifically on the space sector, pairing New Mexico companies with Larta’s expertise in SBIR and STTR commercialization to give founders a clear, structured path from early-stage research to federal award.”
Larta Institute, NM FAST’s commercialization partner for this program, will lead the full design and delivery of the accelerator curriculum. Larta has supported startups that have collectively raised more than $23.7 billion since 1993 and brings that track record to founders working in New Mexico’s growing aerospace and space technology sector.
The cohort aligns with the aerospace priority sector named in the New Mexico Entrepreneurship Programmatic Support Grant and is relevant to companies working at the intersection of advanced computing, bioscience and advanced energy applications in space-related contexts.
NM FAST is administered by Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University and operates statewide, serving founders in Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Los Alamos and rural communities across New Mexico. Over more than a decade of programming, NM FAST has supported more than 470 New Mexico startups and helped companies secure nearly $28 million in federal SBIR awards. Targeted outreach is directed to rural, women, veteran and minority entrepreneurs.
The program is sponsored by the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Technology and Innovation Office through the New Mexico Entrepreneurship Programmatic Support Grant, which supports continued statewide programming for SBIR/STTR-eligible companies in the four priority sectors.
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Applications are open now and will be accepted through July 14, 2026. Interested companies can apply at forms.gle/CqSwEL7LahqB5pGu9. Space is limited, and selected companies will be notified before the program launch.
SANTA FE, N.M. – Santa Fe County and Edgewood approved a new agreement and ordinance that secures ongoing fire and EMS services for Edgewood residents.
According to a joint announcement from the Town of Edgewood and Santa Fe County on June 19, the two governments negotiated and adopted a new Joint Powers Agreement and ordinance to keep the Santa Fe County Fire Department serving the town.
County and town representatives drafted the agreement together. The town adopted the ordinance unanimously at a special meeting on June 16, putting an end to weeks of uncertainty.
Santa Fe County District 3 Commissioner Camilla Bustamante said, “I believe we are all relieved to know that the people of Edgewood will continue to have the fire and EMS services necessary to protect their homes, their families, and their community. This community deserves nothing less.”
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The announcement said the ordinance takes effect five days after final publication. The statement also said no further action or approval is needed to guarantee continued fire suppression, fire prevention, and EMS services for Edgewood residents.
Both governments noted the agreement will continue indefinitely unless either side ends it with five years’ notice.
