Corner to Corner
Diane Denish is a former lieutenant governor of New Mexico. She is a native of Hobbs and now lives in Albuquerque.
No one has to tell us wildfire season is in full swing in New Mexico. The smell of smoke — even from hundreds of miles away — reminds us of what’s happening. If the wind doesn’t bring the scent, the haze across the western sky surely will.
New Mexico’s vast landscape — from the San Augustin Plains to the Gila Wilderness and the Bosque through Valencia and Bernalillo counties — has always been vulnerable to wildfires. Fires are a natural part of Western ecology.
But things are changing. Fire season now starts earlier and lasts longer as climate change and prolonged drought take hold.
When the smoke clears, the economic toll comes into focus.
Beyond the immediate impacts on daily life and health, fires often bring lasting harm to economic well-being — either temporarily or permanently.
Take the recent fires in Los Angeles, where nearly 32,000 homes and businesses burned. The result? Business closures, lost jobs, and reduced consumer activity.
That’s a large-scale example. But the same story plays out here at home, just on a different scale.
In 2024, Ruidoso was devastated by the South Fork and Salt fires. These blazes tore through tribal lands, U.S. Forest land, and the area around the village, destroying around 1,400 structures — just as tourist season was beginning.
Economically, the effect was swift. Shops, cafés, guide businesses, and the Ruidoso Downs Racetrack shut down. Visitors canceled plans. Locals lost jobs. Business owners faced cleanup costs instead of summer profits.
In 2022, the Black Fire scorched over 300,000 acres in the Gila Wilderness, affecting ranchers, farmers, outfitters, and nearby communities. The region relies heavily on summer tourism. When trails and campgrounds close, so do small businesses. For a mom-and-pop store, that one season of lost income can be devastating.
New Mexico’s largest wildfire in recorded history — the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire — burned 342,000 acres. It began as a prescribed burn by the U.S. Forest Service, but quickly got out of control. Over 900 structures were lost, many of them uninsured, generational homes.
Even as I write this, the Buck and Trout fires are burning roughly 100,000 acres in the Gila Wilderness. The small community of Mimbres, with only 390 residents, had to evacuate. Fortunately, containment is in sight.
Closer to Albuquerque, the Desert Willow Complex fire in Los Lunas has burned fewer than 500 acres but destroyed several structures. Others are covered in flame retardant — a new challenge of its own.
From Los Angeles to rural New Mexico, the direct consequences of wildfires are sobering: homes destroyed, livelihoods uprooted, businesses shuttered.
And the indirect effects linger long after the last embers die out — higher insurance premiums, rising rebuilding costs, and lower tax revenues for local governments that simultaneously need more funds for fire prevention, cleanup, and mitigation.
While tourism often takes the biggest hit, agriculture — another cornerstone of our economy — suffers too. Fires can ruin crops, destroy grazing lands, and damage irrigation systems, deeply affecting family farms and ranches.
And just as communities begin to recover, they face a new threat: monsoon rains. These seasonal storms bring flash floods and erosion, especially dangerous on burned land stripped of vegetation.
There’s one more, harder-to-measure impact: uncertainty. Families must decide whether to rebuild or leave. Business owners wait on insurance claims, restock shelves, or close for good. Local governments scramble to revise budgets and find emergency resources.
Long after the fires are contained, the effects continue to smolder — quietly reshaping lives, livelihoods, and communities across New Mexico.
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