An invitation to stewardship: Smokey Bear's legacy in Capitan

Plus: Statewide fire restrictions, reforestation center, treatment notes, and more

NMFD Newsletter | May 1, 2026

News from New Mexico's Forests

50 years of Smokey Bear Historical Park.

This year marks 50 years of a one-of-a-kind institution in New Mexico: Smokey Bear Historical Park in Capitan, situated right on Smokey Bear Blvd. The park celebrates its anniversary with the Smokey Bear Days event, May 1-2.

State Fire Restrictions were also implemented in April: Learn more about those restrictions below and how to apply to for exemptions. We cover the New Mexico Reforestation Center groundbreaking in Mora and dive into fire potential outlooks for May.

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From the Field

What's a cub got to do with it? The story of New Mexico's own Smokey Bear takes center stage in this month's From the Field. Learn how the wildfire prevention message and the living symbol have both found a home at Smokey Bear Historical Park — the only park and museum of its kind in the U.S.

This month, Smokey Bear Historical Park in Capitan, New Mexico, celebrates its 50th anniversary—50 years of telling the story of an orphaned cub, educating visitors about wildfire prevention, fire ecology, and conservation, and serving as the heart of a small village that’s made its

most famous resident part of its identity. The story of the park and the story of Smokey Bear as a living symbol became closely intertwined when a 1950 wildfire, a federal prevention campaign, and a real-life bear grew into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Read the story

Hot Tip: Living with fire restrictions

We're seeing an active, early fire season statewide. Across New Mexico, fire starts and acreage burned are both more than double the five-year average. This echoes the national trend, where starts as of April were 230% of average, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

To prevent catastrophic wildfires from starting, statewide fire restrictions went into effect in April. This means no burning on state and private lands : no campfires, fireworks, smoking, prescribed or debris burning, or oil and gas flaring non non-municipal, non-federal and non-Tribal lands.

You can request an exemption , but broadly, these restrictions are efforts to galvanize all of us to prevent large wildfires from taking off.

We know from previous years: Fire restrictions work—but only when we all take them seriously. None of us are the exception to fire restrictions: We’re all capable of accidentally starting a wildfire. It’s on all of us to make small, temporary changes that will have a far-reaching, lasting impact.

We're not the only ones with restrictions: Before you light that brush pile or head out camping, check restrictions in your area:

Where do I check?

For a statewide overview of all county and federal restrictions, check the Southwest Area Fire Restrictions Dashboard on the Forestry Division’s Fire Restrictions page .

For municipal restrictions, contact your local fire department or government agency

For public lands, check websites ( fs.usda.gov , nps.gov and blm.gov ) for the area you’re interested in, or call/visit the nearest ranger station.

For Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches, check weather.gov .

Read the restrictions

In the Community

Community Mitigation Buffers Map

By strategically treating certain areas , we can extend the impact of our forestry and wildfire prevention work multiple times over.

This tool can help identify those areas where work is needed or where risk is high. Communities at risk are also priority areas for project funding and financial assistance.

Check out the interactive map .

???? Mora

A not-so-small seed was planted this week: New Mexico Reforestation Center officially broke ground , beginning to grow New Mexico's capacity to produce seedlings, collect seed, and reforest the millions of acres that have burned in high-intensity wildfires statewide. Read more about the Center's aims.

???? Albuquerque

Crews have removed invasives and reduced hazardous fuels in the bosque on Albuquerque Open Space. This project month after the Unified Fire burned through 300 acres of bosque in Rio Communities.

The benefits abound: Removing invasives reduces the ladder fuels that help smaller fires climb into the canopy. This treatment will also help more water reach native trees, meaning they'll shed fewer limbs that can become fuel for future fires.

???? Deming

Our field staff are bugging out statewide.

From Deming to Los Lunas to Las Vegas, we're working to find and prevent bark beetle breakouts before they take off.

It's part of an Early Detection and Rapid Response plan. The earlier the intervention, the more likely it is to be successful.

???? Catron County

Speaking of bark beetles, our forest health manager recently conducted aerial surveys, where widespread beetle kill was on full display.

But the bigger takeaway: Areas that had been treated had significantly less mortality, in some places nearly none at all.

Our overstocked forests are stressed competing for water and resources, which makes them even more vulnerable to pests. Want to prevent beetle breakouts ? Treat overly dense areas.

The Broadcast: News and Notes

How New Mexico is 'building a forest' by solving a seedling shortage | H igh Country News

Experts estimate it would take 50 years to replant the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon burn scar at current rates. That’s where the New Mexico Reforestation Center comes in with a seed-to-seedling-to-tree post-fire reforestation pipeline and research to adapt trees to hotter, drier conditions of the future.

‘Torchy represents good fire’: Wisconsin’s fire mascot just got a rebrand | WUWM

Wisconsin has a rich history of prescribed burns. Now, "Torchy Timberloss," Wisconsin's Smokey Bear-era anti-fire mascot, has been brought out of retirement with a different message: Not all fire is bad…