By Andrew Hay
TIERRA MONTE, N.M. (Reuters) – When U.S. President Joe Biden visits New Mexico on Saturday to meet victims of the state’s largest ever wildfire, Daniel Encinias hopes to get a chance to ask him for a new house.
Encinias’ home and hundreds more in northern New Mexico were torched after controlled burns by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) that were meant to reduce wildfire risk ran out of control in April.
The resulting Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire has burned around 320,000 acres (129,500 hectares), an area the size of Los Angeles, in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
Encinias and his family are among locals invited to the state capital Santa Fe for Biden’s visit. The president is expected to address mistakes by the USFS, federal compensation and the broader issue of wildfires in the West that are driven by climate change.
“I don’t need an apology, I need a home,” said Encinias, 55, standing in the ashes of his house next to blackened forest and the recreational vehicle his family of five now lives in.
The rancher and retired electrician has so far received $37,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), probably not enough for a new house foundation.
Like many residents in this low-income area of the second-poorest U.S. state, he built his house pay-check to pay-check and has no homeowners insurance.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham visited the area on Tuesday and told locals she was working with federal authorities on full compensation. Encinias said that could possibly mean rebuilding homes.
Some residents who lost their homes are leaving the area’s Indo-Hispano communities, which have their own dialect of Spanish, raising concerns that centuries-old traditions will disappear.
Local officials are looking for federal funds to avert another potential disaster when summer rains that usually begin in July are expected to trigger ash flows, mudslides and flooding in areas damaged by wildfire.
“I understand how the government moves and the pace that they try to resolve matters, but it isn’t at the pace that we need it to happen,” said San Miguel County Commissioner Max Trujillo.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Tierra Monte, New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson and Frances Kerry)
