New Mexico Community Stories
Glorieta Estates is an unincorporated and small community of approximately
100 people located in the Rocky Mountains of north-central New Mexico. Essentially,
we're just neighbors visiting about fire and stuff. The neighborhood initially
started working together in 2002 as a Neighborhood Watch concerned primarily
with burglary. That summer, New Mexico had several devastating wildfires
and we watched a few "air shows" from our porches. This experience drew
our attention to wildfire risks.
Our informal meetings have featured a range of guest speakers: wildland-urban
interface specialists and firefighters, foresters, agronomists, entomologists,
and wildlife biologists. We learned about forest biomass and overgrowth,
forest health and insect pests, water harvesting and drought, soil health
and erosion, and dangerous wildlife.
Based on our understanding of forest health combined with shared community values, we began to remove excessive vegetation from around our homes and to develop a wildfire risk assessment and mitigation plan that can be downloaded from this web area. This plan describes our community and assessment/planning effort, and it identifies the factors responsible for the most serious wildfire risks we face. It also considers what we might do about it all, in the form of lists of potential solutions. The problems we face seem staggering.
You are invited to find out more about us by reading our plan --- it even includes some pictures! We'd welcome your comments. Just e-mail us using the message box below. We'd also appreciate any help you might offer regarding how we might better implement our plan. (Our group is too small to become a 501.C.3).
Excerpts from the plan follow:
1) "This Assessment and Mitigation Plan ... focuses on wildfire risks but is informed of many other community values including general forest and soil health, water conservation, wildlife, policing, access and privacy issues, and recreation."
2) "This Assessment and Mitigation Plan is a group effort, initiated and carried by the community. Almost half of the community was directly involved in discussions that led to developing it. This plan is also the product of agency expertise.... Our community is very grateful to these professionals who have taken the time to attend our evening meetings, to tour the neighborhood and individual homes, and even to work shoulder-to-shoulder at thinning and chipping."
To learn more about the residents of Glorieta Estates’ approach to wildfire
mitigation, download their Firewise plan. 
Glorieta
Firewise Plan
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