After the Fire

by Lynn Davis

May 13, 2022. A fire starts 31 miles northwest of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in the Gila (pronounced hee-luh) National Forest. The raging fire, called the Black Fire, will eventually burn approximately 400,000 acres of rugged, forested terrain to become the second-largest fire in New Mexico’s history. Local and national media sources begin reporting on the dramatic fire.

July 2, 2022. The U.S. Forest Service incident commander announces that the fire has been contained, but some areas of the forest, including a thick stand of dead trees on a steep slope, continue to burn. The commander reports that 319 personnel have been deployed to achieve this level of containment.

Sept. 22, 2022. The U.S. Forest Service reports that an Emergency Closure remains in effect within the total fire perimeter of 329 miles and that hazardous conditions and adverse weather conditions have hindered further containment of the fire.

Nov. 8, 2022. Bat Conservation International (BCI) sends a five-person crew into a significant low-elevation riverside (also called riparian) area to restore essential bat and wildlife habitats ravaged by fire.

Their work was downright freezing— cold enough to freeze water bottles in their tents—and outright physical. For five days, the team lugged heavy post pounders and dug holes along two miles of eroded stream banks to dig down through the rock cobble to the water table to plant 850 willows.

“We do what we need to do to help bats survive,” says BCI Senior Restoration Specialist Dan Taylor.

Long before the Black Fire ignited, BCI was planning a project in the Gila National Forest. This area is noted for its remarkable biodiversity and primeval beauty, and in 1924, more than 500,000 acres of the forest were reserved as the world’s first wilderness area. This land was later designated a National Wilderness Area when the Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964.

Today, the forest’s varying elevations, rising from remnant grasslands and desert scrub to ponderosa pine and piñon juniper, support 84 species of mammals, 44 reptiles, 11 amphibian species, and 20 bat species. Taylor says that almost half of the 45 species of bats found in the U.S. and Canada can be found in the Gila National Forest year-round.

In the fall of 2021, at the request of the New Mexico Environment Department Surface Water Quality Bureau, BCI developed a comprehensive work plan to proactively shore up water resources in a riparian floodplain of the national forest, an area dense with bats and other wildlife.

“The fire left little vegetation to protect the soil on the steep canyon slopes, and flood flows moved large trees and boulders,” Taylor says. “In some areas, the soil had been stripped down to rocky cobble.” The floodplain was heavily impacted, particularly affecting stream banks and riparian vegetation.

Bats were certain to be drastically affected by this disaster, as well. With minimal vegetation remaining for insects to feed on, bats’ food sources would be seriously diminished.

In early November, BCI mobilized a team of five restoration specialists. Taylor and Sandoval were joined by BCI restoration crew members Brianna Mann, Nick Diessa, and Zasha Walsh to restore crucial foraging habitats and minimize disruption of the area’s biodiversity.

BCI’s bat habitat restoration efforts in Black Canyon will continue through June 2024. The next trip into the canyon is planned for March 2023, when the crew will continue to plant willows and begin using onsite boulders and large downed logs to shore up eroding stream banks. With hard work and good weather luck, Black Canyon will once again become a vibrant habitat for bats.