‘It wiped us out’: history of US forest mismanagement fans the flames of disaster

Residents of the New Mexico canyon scorched by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires blame the government for the acres they lost

The air smells of ash and the landscape is leached of color. Spots of green punctuate the valley floor in places. But along the ridges, the powdery residue of charred trees has fallen like snow, accumulating up to 4 inches deep. These are the slices of forest where the fire burned the hottest, scorching ponderosa pines from crown to root. Once titans, they are now matchsticks.

Pola Lopez gestures in their direction, southward toward Hermits Peak. Before a tsunami of flames ripped through this canyon in Tierra Monte, the canopy was so thick that it was impossible to see the nearby mountain. But two prescribed burns set by the US Forest Service (USFS) - one on Hermits Peak, the other in Calf Canyon to the south-west - have changed all that.