Overview

Bernalillo District
5105 Santa Fe Hills Blvd
Rio Rancho, NM 87124
505-867-2334   505-867-2225 fax

The Bernalillo District serves eight of the state's counties including: Cibola, McKinley, Valencia, Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance, Los Alamos and Santa Fe. The District, in west-central New Mexico, totals 6.6 million acres consisting of 160,000 acres of commercial forest; 1.54 million acres of piñon-juniper and bosque woodland; and 4.9 million acres of non-forest watershed. The District office is located off Highway 550 on Santa Fe Hills Blvd, approximately two miles north of the intersection at State Road 528 that goes through Rio Rancho.

Each year the District assists hundreds of landowners and fire department members by providing field visits, written management plans, design and cost sharing of forest conservation practices, such as thinning and tree planting projects, workshops on forest and watershed health, and fire training. The District also reviews commercial harvesting activity on private lands to assure compliance with state harvesting regulations. Each year, more than 200 Wildland fires occur on state and private lands within the district.

Bernalillo District Forester - Todd Haines has been with the Forestry Division since 1998, after an eight year stint with the US Forest Service. Todd has served as the Bernalillo District Timber Management Officer, as well as State Timber Management Officer from 2003 - 2005, working with state-wide programs such as the New Mexico Forest Stewardship Program, supervising the Seedling Program manager and acting as local supervisor to the State Forest Entomologist.  He has a B.S. in Forestry from Northern Arizona University (1991).

The District Forester oversees the various District programs including Fire, Timber, Wildland Urban Interface, and Special Projects along with the District administration. 

Fire Management Officer -Ryan Vigil.   

One of the Bernalillo District’s top priorities for the fire program is to work with local fire departments to increase their capability to respond to wildland fires efficiently and safely. The fire management program has the largest impact when working with multi-agency groups like the East Mountain Interagency Fire Protection Association to encourage statewide mobilization of fire department resources, organize the use of the Incident Command System and to pre-plan fire evacuations and structural protection. The District has a number of fire departments participating in the Resource Mobilization Plan (RMP). RMP departments are available for statewide (and out of State) dispatches to interagency fires. In support of this we also train between 400 and 600 firefighters per year in various levels of National Wildfire Coordinating Group fire courses.

Timber Management Officer - Currently Vacent - Duties being performed by other District Staff

The District Timber Sale program serves to assist private landowners in complying with the New Mexico Forest Regulations and Best Management Practices (BMP’s) with their forest harvesting activities. The Timber Management program also is the district lead with the State Stewardship Program. This program serves forest landowners by assisting with management planning. The Timber program also works with the American Tree Farm System to promote healthy forest ecosystems and recognize forest landowners that meet the standards.

Special Projects Forester - Lawrence Crane.  Lawrence came to us from private industry and has worked with many of the Division’s districts on a variety of unique timber harvesting projects. He joined the District as the Timber Management officer in October of 2003 after 17 years with the timber industry (Duke City Lumber – Rio Grande Forest Products) in northern New Mexico. In the summer of 2007 he became the District’s Special Projects Forester. Lawrence has a B.S. in Forestry from Northern Arizona University (1984).

The Special Projects Forester Position was added to the District in response to the growing demand for work in the wildland urban interface and forest thinning work on the District in general. The Special Projects Forester is the District lead in working with cooperators to get these projects on the ground. This position is also the District lead with various environmental outreach efforts. Lawrence also is the lead on District mapping projects.

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Forester, Karen Lightfoot has been with the District since 1999. Prior to joining the District she worked in the Santa Fe office as one of State Forestry’s endangered species botanists. Karen has a B.S. in Biology from New Mexico State University (NMSU) and a MS in Botany and Ecology from NMSU. 

Although she is a District employee she serves as the Statewide Firewise Coordinator. She also works with communities and local governments to promote WUI safety. New Mexico is rapidly increasing its WUI areas, where people and homes exist in and around woodlands, grasslands and forest.

Administrative Management Officer - Diane Martinez Diane has been with the District since 2004. Previously, Diane worked with the Sandoval County Emergency Services Division from 1999 – 2004. Diane will finish her A.S. in Accounting from Central New Mexico College in May of 2009.

Diane is responsible for fiscal and personnel programs in the District. She coordinates District purchasing, payroll, and cooperator reimbursements for forestry projects and wildfire suppression. She also assists in all the technical program areas.

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