EDITORIAL: The state must step up and offer real tangible help for Ruidoso fire victims

Well, here we go again — or, maybe not.

President Joe Biden on June 20 approved a major disaster declaration for victims of the South Fork and Salt fires in the Ruidoso area, “unlocking federal assistance for New Mexicans.”

That sounds kind of familiar.

Biden issued a federal major disaster declaration in May 2022, shortly after the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire in April 2022, but that didn’t mean people had a place to live. Or that they would get compensated for their losses anytime soon.

It largely meant the federal government would first compensate local government for their infrastructure losses, not people for their burned homes, even though the nation’s Forest Service started the largest and most destructive wildfire in state history with ill-advised and unsupervised prescribed burns that, when aided by gusty winds, record heat and dry forests, merged in April 2022 and burned more than 320,000 acres in Mora, San Miguel and Taos counties, destroying about 430 homes and causing an estimated 18,000 people to flee a 534-square-mile fire zone.

Fortunately, the South Fork and Salt fires didn’t wreak devastation on the vast geographic scale of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, but it was nonetheless devastating. The South Fork Fire burned 17,500 acres north of Ruidoso before rain, hail and humidity tamped it down, while the Salt Fire burned 8,000 acres south of the mountain village.

An estimated 1,400 structures near Ruidoso and the Mescalero Apache Reservation were damaged in the South Fork and Salt fires. The Lincoln County manager said during a news conference that “we are approaching a thousand homes lost.”

Most tragically, two people were killed in the fires that erupted the night of June 17 and prompted a scurried and chaotic evacuation of 8,000 people. There was just one road out of town, leading to safe havens in Roswell, as thousands of residents left their pets, their livestock and their priceless belongings behind.

Patrick Pearson, 60, didn’t make it out. Recovering from a broken leg several weeks earlier, Pearson was found not far from the Ruidoso hotel where he lived, wearing a leg brace. He had made arrangements to get a ride from a woman who was unable to enter Ruidoso during the chaotic evacuation of the mountain village.

Neither did an unidentified person, whose skeletal remains were recovered June 18 in the driver’s seat of a burned Toyota Camry on Ranier Road in Ruidoso, less than a mile from where Pearson's body was found curled up under a tree.

Journal photos show it was a scene from hell.

Full-time residents of Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs were allowed to return to their homes or properties in the fire-stricken area on June 24, although hazards remain, including downed powerlines, damaged water, sewer and gas lines, localized flooding, mudslides in areas of burn scars and fire-weakened trees that pose risks to firefighters and the public.

The situation remains quite serious.

“Residents should remember that while fire behavior has been reduced to smoldering and creeping in heavy duff and dead/down fuels with minimal spread, fire can and will still actively burn across the South Fork and Salt fires, especially with changing weather conditions,” stated a recent update from the the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Southwest Area Incident Management Team.

Returning full-time residents were advised to bring at least a week’s worth of food and drinking water. They can expect periodic gas, electricity and water outages while repairs are made.

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich said FEMA’s major disaster declaration for Lincoln and Otero counties and the Mescalero Apache Reservation allows New Mexicans to access federal assistance for individuals and households, including crisis counseling, case management, low-interest federal disaster loans for businesses and residents, unemployment assistance and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

In other words, the federal government is sending its thoughts and prayers, and an EBT card for a little food.

The federal disaster declaration can also provide public assistance to state, tribal and local governments for debris removal and emergency protective measures, and hazard mitigation assistance for governments and certain private nonprofit organizations to mitigate long-term risks from natural hazards.

Thank goodness New Mexicans from every corner of the state are chipping in so much more than that.

If there’s one lesson we learned from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, it’s that New Mexicans cannot rely on FEMA, the White House or our congressional delegation in the wake of disasters.

Biden and Congress approved $4 billion of recovery aid for Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire victims in November and December of 2022. FEMA was directed to design and administer a program for fully compensating New Mexicans who suffered personal injury, property losses, and business losses.

But it wasn’t until April 2023, a year after the fire, that FEMA finally opened offices in Mora, Las Vegas and Santa Fe to help fire victims navigate the arduous federal claims process.

As Jay Mitchell, the director of operations for the New Mexico Joint Recovery Office of FEMA, conceded in a June 17 Journal op-ed, FEMA had paid out only $809 million of that $4 billion for property, business, and financial losses, “most of which in just the last few months,” he said.

“But we still have more than $3 billion to distribute, which likely means you or somebody you love has not heard from us to work through a claim,” Mitchell wrote in his op-ed. “Time is not on our side in getting anyone and everyone into the process prior to the congressional deadline of Nov. 14, 2024, to file a Notice of Loss.”

New Mexicans should not have to again wait more than two years and wade through FEMA red tape to get assistance. And we don’t have to. The state is flush with revenues thanks to the back-breaking, sun-drenched labor of our oil and gas workers in the oilpatch.

State leaders should devise a program to utilize our overflowing state coffers to process and pay claims of Ruidoso fire victims, and let the state fight for reimbursement from the feds in the courts.

We have proposed this before for victims of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, but state leaders didn't take us up on the proposal. If they had, victims of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of a Nov. 14 deadline to file a claim.

The governor and legislators will be convening July 18 for a special session on crime and public safety. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham should broaden the call of the session to include debate about compensating Ruidoso fire victims.

With some proper planning and timely execution, we can do it better than FEMA. We know the ground, we know the people affected, and we have the means to take care of them.

It’s time for some bold bipartisanship, like that shown by so many groups and communities that have stepped up to offer help, to make our most recent fire victims whole.