Click to view a full-size image of the field tour map, including an inset showing where the tour was in relation to the CFLRP boundary.
On July 17th, close to 60 individuals representing more than a dozen organizations gathered in the southeastern corner of the Zuni Mountains. They were there to tour recent forest and community health-related work and discuss how it goes beyond land ownership or CFLRP (Collaborative Forest and Landscape Resilience Program) boundaries to encompass an “all-lands” approach to forest and community resilience.
Click to view a photo journal of the field tour. Courtesy of Phil Rudy, US Forest Service - CFLRP Coordinator.
The tour, organized by the Forest Stewards Guild, Ramah Navajo - Natural Resources Management, and the USDA Forest Service, traveled first to the Ramah Navajo Chapter House community wood bank, then the recently opened Quartz Hill Trailhead, and finally to a trail within the Quartz Hill system which is still under construction. At each stop, they heard from a diverse set of presenters and had the opportunity to ask questions. Since sharing a meal is a sacred part of building connections, the group also enjoyed homemade baked goods in the morning and a lunch of Navajo burgers, watermelon, and blue corn cupcakes at the wood bank catered by a local family.
View the full field tour recap notes to learn more.
Click on the image to access the full field tour notes PDF
Click on one of the sections below to jump to that stop’s highlights!
Ramah Navajo Community Wood Bank
The Ramah Navajo Chapter, where the tour group started their day, is no stranger to community wood banks. For the past two decades, program managers there have been getting wood from nearby forest thinning projects and selling or donating the resulting firewood to community members in need. They ran into some challenges some years back and haven’t been operating as a wood bank since, instead having to purchase firewood from commercial providers. So, when the Wood for Life program came to the Zuni Mountains looking for volunteers to receive loads of logs from National Forest System thinning projects, the Ramah Navajo were first in line.
Locations of the four wood banks in west-central New Mexico participating in Wood for Life
Ramah Navajo is one of four wood banks receiving support from the US Forest Service, ZMC Wood Utilization and Community Fuelwood working group (coordinated by the Forest Stewards Guild), Wood for Life (run by the National Forest Foundation; NFF), and other partners. These wood bank ‘hubs’ process and distribute wood both within their own community and to surrounding communities. Since the wood bank became operational around a year ago, Ramah Navajo has provided over 240 cords of firewood to community members from Ramah Navajo, Ramah, Zuni Pueblo, Candy Kitchen, Grants, Gallup, and beyond. More logs are stacked in the wood yard, awaiting volunteer labor to be cut, split, and stacked into 1-cord piles for distribution.
The success of this wood bank has been dependent on a number of factors, first and foremost the dedication of Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Forestry Director Mike Henio and foreman Jonathan Henio. The wood bank already had processing equipment that was purchased with CFRP funds in the late 2000s, but it needed repairs. Through federal Investment, Infrastructure, and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding they were able to buy replacement parts and do the repairs needed to make this equipment operational. They also used a small grant from NFF to hire youth crews to process wood, joining community members and volunteers from nonprofit groups such as Chizh for Cheii and Diné Bá'ádeit'į́ who traveled from other parts of Navajoland to help cut and split wood.
This wood bank, as well as other ‘hubs’ and smaller community wood banks in the region, still require large investments of funding, time, and administrative capacity in order to become self-sustaining. Ramah Navajo wood bank is working toward becoming a nonprofit with the goal of securing steady funding to keep its gates open - with or without support from the Wood for Life program.
Attendees gather in the Department of Natural Resources agriculture building for lunch as longtime CFLRP coordinator and key project partner Shawn Martin, Forest Service, receives acknowledgement and appreciation for his many years of dedication from Eytan Krasilovsky, Forest Stewards Guild.
A big thanks to Mike and Jonathan for hosting the tour group, taking us around the wood bank and sharing their knowledge, and organizing lunch with a space to share a meal. Click on the images below to read more about community wood banks and Ramah Navajo’s success.
Brief from the Forest Stewards Guild on community wood banks in west-central New Mexico and collaborative efforts to secure funding and ensure continuity.
Background and current work at the Ramah Navajo wood bank. Write-up by Jonathan Henio, Ramah Navajo Department of Natural Resources.
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Recreation and the Quartz Hill Trail System
Map of the Quartz Hill trail system. At the time of the field tour, additional trails were being constructed near the top right (northeast) corner of the map, close to the intersection of Bonita Canyon and Zuni Canyon roads.
Attendees of the ZMC annual Collaborative meeting in May 2025 were able to hear about the benefits of forest recreation - including for the community and the economy - and the field tour provided an opportunity to see recreation infrastructure with their own eyes. The group visited the Quartz Hill trail system, where a large portion of nearly 200 miles of new trail is currently being built.
The group learned that collaboration is front and center in these efforts, with recreation development being guided by the overarching framework of the Zuni Mountains Master Trails and Conservation Plan. New trails are developed in collaboration with a group of stakeholders who provide input, including considerations for accessibility, proximity to communities, and potential impact to natural and cultural resources. The Quartz Hill trails are non-motorized, meaning they are reserved for hikers, bikers, backpackers, horseback riders, and others looking to enjoy the sights and sounds of the forest.
The group ended this portion of the tour where lava fields meet the forest off of Bonita Canyon Rd. They walked a small portion of unfinished trail whose construction, initiated by a mini excavator, will be completed by hand over the next few months, and learned about what goes into trail site selection and sustainable trail building. During the planning phase, these multi-use trails are originally mapped in a corridor roughly 30m (and up to 60m) wide. The exact location of the trail is then determined by recreation staff who walk the area to choose the precise path. Builders look for minimal grade and a flowing design which reduces the need to design features for water conveyance. This makes the trail user's experience more pleasant while also reducing erosion and runoff from the trail. Builders aim for a final finished trail that is ~2 feet wide, which sometimes means narrowing the trail after initially cutting it into the landscape with small machinery, as will be done here.
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The Successful Interaction of the Merrill Fire and Forest Restoration Treatments
The Merrill Fire is a 54-acre wildfire that burned from private land onto Forest Service property on the west side of the Zuni Mountains in May 2025. Because this wildfire serves as a testament to the efficacy of decades of collaborative forest restoration in the area, organizers felt that it was important to discuss during the tour. Standing amongst fire-adapted ponderosa pine trees in the vicinity of the Quartz Hill trails, the group heard about how the Merrill Fire started, how fire crews responded, and how the fire interacted with forest thinning treatments.
Images, left to right: 1) a fire scarred stump near Quartz Hill shows a history of frequent low-intensity fire 2) post-fire conditions within the Merrill Fire footprint show a low-intensity mosaic burn pattern 3) nighttime creeping surface fire and very mild fire behavior, similar to a prescribed burn, during the Merrill Fire 4) low-severity surface fire with occasional torching observed during the day.
The Merrill Fire ignited when a mylar balloon came into contact with live powerlines and fell onto the grass below. It started under weather conditions that could be conducive to rapid fire spread with a temperature of 83 °F, relative humidity of 4%, and winds blowing at 10-15 mph out of the southwest. Once the fire crossed the Forest Service boundary, it burned into ponderosa pine-dominant forest that had been thinned using CFLRP funding with the goal of improving forest health and resilience.
Land ownership map and acreage burned by the Merrill Fire, courtesy of Lawrence Crane, District Forester - EMNRD Forestry Division Bernalillo District.
As it burned through the thinned area, it remained a low-moderate intensity surface fire with occasional forays into the lower canopy of low-hanging trees. The fire didn’t climb into the tree canopy or become a high-intensity crown fire. Even under high fire danger conditions, crews were able to quickly dig containment line around the Merrill Fire (“go direct”), protect all values at risk (including nearby cabins and timber decks), and declare it “fully contained” within two days.
Research has consistently shown that ecologically based forest thinning and prescribed burning is the most effective way to restore health in fire-adapted forest types like ponderosa pine. This local example shows that the decades of work by the Zuni Mountains Collaborative with the support of federal CFLRP funding has achieved its goal of reducing the risk of catastrophic fire and improving forest condition.
Short brief and photos of the Merrill Fire courtesy of Lawrence Crane, District Forester - EMNRD Forestry Division Bernalillo District. All photos taken by responding fire engine N6S-Mod 6.
Investigation report on the Merrill Fire, courtesy of the US Forest Service.