The Science and Technology Committee received a 30‑minute briefing from the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at New Mexico Highlands University on tools for wildfire prevention, post‑fire recovery and landscape restoration.
Buddy Rivera, deputy director, said the institute operates three program pillars—community conservation and education, technical applied science, and administrative support—and employs about 22–26 full‑time staff with seasonal helpers and interns. Rivera described a statewide suite of mapping and data tools, including the New Mexico Fire Viewer (nmfireviewer.org), a Hermit’s Peak‑Calf Canyon hub site for shared incident information, and the New Mexico Vegetation Treatments Geodatabase and ReShape/TWIG project, a national feed of treatment and wildfire data.
Why it matters: presenters said those tools helped residents and agencies during large fires by compiling fire boundaries, hotspots, burn severity, stream gauges and recovery resources into single maps and hub websites; the Fire Viewer recorded hundreds of thousands of views during major incidents.
Funding and risk: Rivera told the committee that the institute’s FY24 federal appropriation was about $6.6 million (split among three SWERI institutes), with Highlands’ share roughly $2.2 million. For FY25, he said the U.S. Forest Service allocation was cut roughly 55 percent during a federal budget impasse; that lower federal allocation reduced Highlands’ expected FY25 federal funding to about $1,000,000 and will require the institute to scale back noncontract work if additional grants or appropriations are not secured. Rivera said the institute’s FY24 operating budget ran about $4.2 million overall, of which $2.2 million came from the federal appropriation, roughly $1.6 million (38.4%) from other contracts (including the ReShape/TWIG contract), and roughly $350,000 (about 9.2%) from state Research and Public Service Project (RPSP) support through the Higher Education Department.
Committee discussion and collaborations: GIS staff Dana Huisengfeld and Katie Whithnall demonstrated the Fire Viewer and Vegetation Treatments Geodatabase, showed how users can query treatments by area and produce downloadable reports, and said TWIG will begin incorporating state data in early 2026. Members asked about the tools’ uses for smoke forecasting, human health protection, and how the institute collaborates with New Mexico State Forestry and local governments; presenters said they provide data and training and welcome collaborations with health and municipal partners but do not themselves perform clinical health studies.
Next steps: presenters asked legislators to note the institute’s role in statewide wildfire planning and to consider the impact of federal reductions on capacity. Rivera said the institute is pursuing other grants and contracts to maintain core functions and will provide follow‑up information to the committee on funding projections.