Hot and Dry Podcast

We talked with two scientists about life in the Wildland Urban Interface or WUI. We were particularly curious about why people choose to move into these areas even when the risks are well known and have been demonstrated pretty dramatically in the past few years. We wanted to know what gets people motivated to take action to reduce their risks.

We talk with Laura McCarthy and Bill Armstrong about how folks pulled together to restore the forest in the municipal watershed of Santa Fe, NM. From there Laura went on to start the Rio Grande Water Fund which covers 7 million acres in New Mexico. In 2019, she helped pass the Forest and Watershed Restoration Act, aimed at restoring forests across the entire state.

Cally and Collin talk with experts on extreme fire behavior. We learn it is more complex than it seems and the exact definition is hard to pin down.

Catastrophic fires in the Southwest are often a double whammy of fire and floods. The floods that followed the 2011 Las Conchas Fire caused massive erosion, impaired water quality, and threatened several downstream communities. Cally and Collin talk with members of Cochiti and Santa Clara Pueblos about how the floods and the fire impacted their communities and how they’re using this moment to create hope for the future.

There is no single definition of what makes a single fire the “big one.” But there are some common factors: extreme fire behavior, dramatic fire severity, watersheds burned, and communities threatened. In New Mexico, our big one was (and arguably still is) the 2011 Las Conchas Fire. Even though this isn’t the largest fire on record, it still is the one we talk about most.

In part one of a two-part episode, Cally and Collin talk with Craig Allen from the USGS New Mexico Landscapes Field Station, who has studied fire ecology in New Mexico for over 30 years. He was there during the fire and shared his stories with us.

Welcome to Season 2! Cally and Collin talk with experts on how COVID-19 is changing the way we respond to fires across the Southwest and the US. The virus has umm... infected... every aspect of our lives, including wildfire response. In this episode, we’ll learn how management teams are responding to fires and the coronavirus at the same time.

What did the New Mexico legislature accomplish on climate in 2019? And what's next?

In this week's episode, we sit down with journalist Laura Paskus to celebrate the snowpack, bemoan the dry, dry ground it will melt into this spring, and consider how freaked out we should be about our too-close-to-empty reservoirs.

New Mexico's leaders want to stop burnin' up money by wasting methane in the oil fields. Reducing methane waste is good for the climate too. Plus, Michael Cohen jokes!

This week we break down The Energy Transition Act, which would make New Mexico a national leader in renewable energy and shut down the San Juan Generating Station.