Leger Fernández, senators critical of Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak claims office

Three years after one of the most devastating fires in state history, members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are criticizing the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak claims office over its approach to compensating people who lost homes and livelihoods because of the fire.

A September analysis from The Associated Press found natural disaster survivors are waiting longer to get federal aid.

The time it took for major disaster declaration requests to be granted rose from less than two weeks in the early 2000s to three weeks over the past decade to more than a month under President Donald Trump’s current term, The Associated Press reported.

Congress took a unique approach with the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire by creating a specific $5.45 billion fund for fire victims to get compensation. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., is concerned that money is not reaching those affected quickly enough.

“The money is there, and somehow you decide to be cheap. … That money belongs to the victims, and it’s there,” Leger Fernández said, referring to Jay Mitchell, the operations director for FEMA’s New Mexico Joint Recovery Office.

The 2022 fire began with an escaped prescribed burn and a pile burn, both set by the U.S. Forest Service. The two fires merged and burned 341,735 acres in northern New Mexico, becoming the largest fire in state history.

Leger Fernández and Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján sent a letter to the claims office director and the regional FEMA administrator criticizing the office for failing to compensate total loss claims quickly enough, refusing to reopen claims for cascading events and the office’s communication with the public and congressional offices.

“Previously, the claims office committed that all total loss claims would be paid out by March 31, 2025. Nearly seven months later, several total loss claimants still await payment,” the letter reads.

A claims office spokesperson said they were unable to comment on or answer questions about the letter by the Journal’s deadline. The claims office did announce Wednesday that its two Santa Fe offices will be consolidated into one location to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Leger Fernández, Luján and Heinrich also pushed for the office to reopen claims in cases where someone experienced a cascading event, like post-fire flooding, and requested compensation for those impacts. Reopening cases to provide compensation for cascading events is allowed under the legislation that created the compensation fund.

“We are alarmed that many community members have reported that the claims office has refused to reopen their claims to account for cascading events. That is inexplicable,” the letter says.

The legislators also questioned why claimants “report that the claims office shifts them from one navigator to another and requires them to constantly start over.”

The claims office is also not reporting its progress to Congress, Leger Fernández said. The legislators’ letter points to a previous annual report that was 351 days late. The claims office also has a report that was supposed to be completed in August, and the letter asks when that report will be shared.

As of Wednesday, the claims office has paid out $3.2 billion on 22,464 claimed losses.

“When I met with FEMA, including this director and including the former director of FEMA overall, I always emphasized that we are not insurance adjusters,” Leger Fernández said. “We’re not trying to save the federal government money. We have a block of money, and our job is to compensate people.”