New Mexico on Fire

To continue with my series on NM plant communities, this month I've been wondering what's been lost and what's been put at risk with the recent wildfires.  The Hermits Peak - Calf Canyon and Cerro Pelado fires had me worried and now the Bear Trap fire on Mt. Worthington and Black fire in the Black Range are burning through large areas.  Now as I type this, it's May 21st and there's a new fire that sprang up overnight southeast of Corona.  With forecasts for windy or breezy afternoons until Wednesday, there's lots of potential for more trouble.  

What endangered plant species are being threatened by these fires?  If you think these fires are too localized or merely burning through "ordinary" forests, think again.  Many of our NM endemics are narrow edaphics, restricted to certain soil types.  Some of these are gypsovags (tolerate gypsum) gypsophiles (require gypsum) while others are limited to calcareous or limestone-derived soils.  

As a case study, I'm worried that the Hermits Peak Fire will jump across the Pecos and take out all the populations of Ipomopsis sancti-spiritus.  Direct high-temperature burns aren't the only problem.  Past fires in the Jemez led to disastrous flash floods.  Those follow-on events after the wildfire finished off Dixon's apple orchards and appear to have eliminated the population of lady slipper orchids near the Upper Crossing in Bandelier.  

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Since then on 5/26 we've had a close call in the North Valley.  A fire that started on the west bank of the Rio near the Bosque School jumped the river to an area just north of the Candelaria Nature Center.  In the face of 20 mph winds, officials ordered evacuations for the area between Candelaria and Montano west of Rio Grande Blvd west to the river.  

Being only a mile further east, I packed our jump bags into the car and started to go down my to-do list for an evacuation:

• Top off the battery charges on all the cellphones
• Contact cousin in case we need to relocate
• Get Henry Cat into his carrier
• Grab all his medications
• Find the box turtles out back and get them in their carrier
• Unplug the computers and put the CPU's in the trunk

Fortunately, with the setting sun the wind died down.  Soon after the evac. order was lifted.  Tip o' the hat to the City's airboat patrols that keep watch on the bosque as they run up and down the river 24x7.  

Stand down from red alert.  <whew>

Not that I know of any endangered species in this area of the ABQ bosque, this has been a reminder that anywhere in the state could be threatened at a moment's notice.  This Memorial Day weekend will see us facing windy days and stupendously dry conditions.  My brother sent me this URL -- https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/primary/waves/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=-102.94,38.07,665/loc=-109.004,37.759 -- to a online global map of relative humidity (among other things).  Spin it around and you'll see that we're about as dry as the middle of the Gobi Desert, the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, or the Qattara Depression in Egypt. 

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Back to the question at hand, a good first step is to see what biodiversity areas have been impacted by these May wildfires.  Here's the map of Important Plant Areas from Natural Heritage NM (https://nhnm.unm.edu/botany/nm_rare_plant_conservation_strategy) with approximate fire perimeters as of 5/28 overlain.  

Bear Claw narrowly misses IPA 67, San Mateo Mtns (high biodiversity). 

Black has almost completely consumed 65, East Fork Gila River Watershed (high biodiversity). 

Calf Canyon - Hermits Peak has seriously damaged about half of 22, Sangre de Cristo (outstanding biodiversity). 

Cerro Pelado has burned a chunk of 19, Jemez Mtns (moderate biodiversity). 

Cook's Peak has nibbled away at 110, Upper Canadian Watershed (very high biodiversity). 

Taking the Black Fire as an example, let's try to see what species are at risk.  I'm going to simplify matters by limiting my search for wildfire-threatened species by assuming that the fire is only affecting Sierra County.  It's mostly in Sierra, but does hop over into Grant and Catron.  Forecast high winds for this weekend may push the northern boundary into Socorro County.  

Using the search feature at the NM Rare Plant List, we can ask to see "Weakly conserved" species in "Sierra" county:  

The results are these 12 taxa:

The trick now is to separate the species found in the Black Range from those found elsewhere, especially across the valley in the San Andres or more widely distributed ones. 

Looking for each species in iNaturalist is slow, but eventually you can track down whatever info they have.  The main problem is the lack of any sightings at all for many rare plants.  

• I came across a Penstemon metcalfei location northeast of Emory Pass.  For the moment, that population is safe.  
• Packera neomexicana var. metcalfei didn't turn up, but an observation tentatively ID'ed as var. mutabilis from 2013 was in the database and showed a location of 33.4113, -107.9387 in Taylor Creek.  The photo seems to show a plant with glabrous, dentate leaves, so it could be metcalfei.  Sadly, today's National Fire Situational Awareness map shows this to be on the edge of the official perimeter, in an area with lots of hotspots showing on satellite imagery, and likely already burned.  
• Grindelia arizonica var. neomexicana turns up in iNaturalist on the ridge east from Victorio Park Mtn.  That's an area that is not yet burned, but with strong westerly winds this weekend, that population could be at risk.
• Draba mogollonensis has been sighted in Paramount Canyon of the Black Range.  Like Packera, this population is on the north side of the fire where active hotspots indicate that there is still rapid fire growth.  Not good.

That's all I've got.  Be safe, everyone.