Albuquerque center housing ‘critical' wildfire dispatch on DOGE termination list as fire risk grows
The National Interagency Fire Center's March fire weather outlook for North America, showing most of New Mexico with above normal fire conditions. The Albuquerque office for the Albuquerque Interagency Dispatch Center is on the list of lease terminations announced by Elon Musk's DOGE. (Photo Courtesy NIFC)
As Albuquerque and the rest of the state gear up for another wildfire season, a 22,000-square-foot building housing a wildfire dispatch center is on the list of lease terminations announced by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The building at 2113 Osuna Road Northeast in Albuquerque is the office for the Cibola National Forest Supervisor and also the headquarters of the Albuquerque Interagency Dispatch Center, which coordinates fire response among dozens or potentially hundreds of people from different agencies responding to a wildfire.
According to the local broker for the lease between California-based EKF Properties LLC and the United States Forest Service, the property is the same one mentioned in the DOGE lease termination list. Property tax records also show the building has the same square footage as the one on the DOGE list.
Emails and calls to the dispatch center or the National Interagency Fire Center, which oversees the dispatch center, were not returned or were returned undeliverable Tuesday. Several federal agencies, including the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, cooperate with the dispatch center, but did not respond to a request for comment.
DOGE includes Carlsbad WIPP office on list for termination
New Mexico State Forestry is also a partner. Forestry Spokesperson George Ducker declined to comment on the potential closure of the dispatch center but, in an emailed statement, called its work 'critical' and 'paramount' for successful wildfire suppression.
Dispatch centers coordinate fire suppression efforts between federal, state and tribal agencies, including monitoring radio traffic between hand crews, and air support. They also facilitate communications between incident command during larger and more complex wildfires, Ducker said.
'This kind of coordination is critical during emergencies where homes, lives and natural resources are at risk from wildfire,' Ducker said. 'Because each wildfire requires an all-hands response, and that response can include from 100-1,000 people, maintaining good communication between all the different resources is paramount.'
The Albuquerque dispatch center, one of six in the state, covers the state's biggest city, as well as hundreds of square miles in Central New Mexico, stretching south toward Truth or Consequences, west to Zuni Pueblo and east to Encino. Communications about wildfires that spark in that area, regardless of agency, flow through the dispatch center, as well as communications about ongoing prescribed burns.
The center also provides predictive services and intelligence to support incident command and on-the-ground wildland firefighters, according to its website.
Cutting wildfire infrastructure, including placing the Cibola Forest Supervisor's office on the termination list, is a bad idea, said U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján in a statement to Source New Mexico.
Are you an employee or former employee at the dispatch center, Cibola National Forest or other national forests in New Mexico? Reach out to reporter Patrick Lohmann securely on Signal at Plohmann.61 or by using this link.
'Wildfire season in New Mexico is already here, and cutting firefighting infrastructure at this critical moment is reckless and dangerous. Musk and Trump's decision to dismantle these resources — especially after the state's largest wildfire that was ignited by the federal government — puts lives, homes, and communities at risk,' he said in an emailed statement.
Much of New Mexico, including the area the Albuquerque dispatch center monitors, has been under a Red Flag warning this week, as continued drought and high winds create extreme fire risk throughout the state.
A mid-February wildfire outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center shows worsening long-term fire conditions through April here. The NIFC typically provides region-specific wildfire outlooks on the first of each month, but it has not yet published its prediction for March.
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