Crews Plan to Pile Burn Near Hopewell Lake 

And an Update to Pile Burning Near San Cristobal and Along Hwy. 150 

Fire crews are planning to potentially begin pile burning southeast of Hopewell Lake as early as Tuesday, Dec. 5. Up to 550 acres may be treated on the Willow Pile Unit, where many piles were burned last winter. Smoke may be visible from the area. Ignitions notices will be posted to InciWeb. 

Over the weekend, crews burned all the piles near San Cristobal, N.M. They will continue to patrol the site until the fire is called out. They will return for more prescribed fire work on a later date to treat over 700 acres to the south of the neighborhood. The remaining treatment will be a jackpot burn, in which concentrations of down and dead fuels are burned. The public with fuelwood permits has been collecting wood from the area throughout the year. 

Pile burning along Highway 150 did not occur over the weekend. Crews conducted an unsuccessful test fire on Saturday, finding the conditions not conducive to burning down the piles. The piles will be treated at a future time. 

All of these projects are part of the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy, which is addressing wildfire risks to communities, critical infrastructure and forested lands in some of the most at-risk areas of the country. 

Both the San Cristobal and Highway 150 projects are within the strategy’s Enchanted Circle Landscape, one of 21 landscapes prioritized for fuels reduction work. They are also are priorities of the Taos Valley Watershed Coalition. 

The Willow Piles are part of the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project, in which the Forest Service is working with partners to address forest and watershed health in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, which is tied to the drinking water of downstream communities. 

(Photo: Piles burn near San Cristobal, NM, on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023)