12-05-2025
2022 Jemez-area fire spurs lawsuit, allegations of cover-up
May 11—By the time criminal investigators from the U.S. Forest Service arrived in early June 2022, the Cerro Pelado wildfire in the Jemez Mountains had been burning for weeks. A cover-up had been alleged as to the fire's cause, but more than a year elapsed before the truth became public.
The Cerro Pelado blaze was the third major wildfire to strike New Mexico in the spring of 2022 and was overshadowed by two bigger fires that joined up in northeast New Mexico to become the massive Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak wildfire, the state's largest and most destructive.
Ultimately, the evidence showed all three wildfires began as Forest Service prescribed burns, which are intended to reduce an area's wildfire risk.
But back in May 2022, a wildfire investigator from Washington state initially concluded the cause of the Cerro Pelado blaze couldn't be determined, according to investigative reports reviewed by the Journal.
A new lawsuit contends Forest Service employees hid the fact that they hadn't been visually monitoring numerous burn piles of forest debris the agency ignited months earlier.
They also failed to report that the piles hadn't been fully extinguished when high spring winds caught the burning embers, sparking an uncontrolled wildfire on April 22, 2022, that eventually consumed nearly 46,000 acres of forest, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
After a whistleblower at the Forest Service's District Office took issue with the "inconclusive" conclusion, along with other employees, a top Forest Service manager called in Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations agents to conduct a second investigation. Their final report released in the summer of 2023 concluded the cause to be a "holdover fire" from pile burns set in late January and February 2022.
But by then, it was too late for victims who lost property and possessions and sustained other damages in the Cerro Pelado blaze, states the lawsuit filed by the Pueblo of Jemez, Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative Inc., TC Company and 18 property owners in the southern Jemez Mountains.
"The USFS's cover-up of the actual cause and origin of the wildfire resulted in the victims of the fire being left out of the Hermit's Peak Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act," the lawsuit states. Congress approved more than $3.5 billion for victims of the bigger New Mexico wildfire in late 2022 — more than six months before the Forest Service released its final report on the Cerro Pelado fire's origin.
The lawsuit states that the fire and resulting flash flooding of the burn scar damaged or destroyed thousands of acres and residential and commercial structures and culturally significant and sacred spaces and artifacts.
The plaintiffs allege negligence and are seeking all damages "allowable under federal law."
But the Forest Service has "yet to take responsibility for its misconduct," the lawsuit states.
Attorney Christopher Bauman, whose firm filed the lawsuit, said he believes the alleged cover-up of how the fire started "is basically an acknowledgment that they did violate their own policies and procedures and so they were trying to cover it up."
Claudia Brookshire, public affairs officer for the Santa Fe National Forest, declined to comment about the allegations. She told the Journal in an email that the agency doesn't comment about ongoing litigation. She also wouldn't say whether any employees were disciplined as a result of the alleged cover-up.
A July 24, 2023, public statement by USDA Forest Service Southwestern Regional Forester Michiko Martin stated that "despite being covered by wet snow, this holdover fire remained dormant for considerable time with no visible sign of smoke or heat. This investigation adds to the considerable evidence of how severely the Santa Fe National Forest was affected by extreme environmental conditions caused by historic drought in 2022."
How the fire started
The Forest Service's prescribed burn in the Santa Fe National Forest near Jemez Springs called for the ignition of numerous burn piles that were covered in snow between Jan. 19, 2022, and Feb. 19, 2022. They called them the Pino West pile burns.
"These smoldering burn piles were then left completely unattended and unmonitored during the ensuing weeks while quickly changing weather conditions, including high temperatures, abnormally dry conditions, and numerous red flag (extreme wind warnings) days, caused the snow cover to rapidly dissipate and disappear." The "lynchpin" requirement of snow cover was so critical to the (burn plan) that it is mentioned no less than 35 times (in the document), the lawsuit states.
By mid-to-late March 2022, the required continuous snow cover had disappeared, according to satellite images, the lawsuit states. By April 18 of that year, other burn piles in the area had escaped their containment and the Forest Service immediately dispatched a crew to regain control of the fire. That spurred a check of the Pino West pile burns on April 20, 2022.
What the fire crew found "was ominous smoke rising from the still burning and smoldering pile burns," the lawsuit states.
The crew attempted to extinguish the burning and smoldering embers by scattering them using hand tools. But that allowed high winds to fan the embers into flames, the lawsuit states, and on April 22, 2022, the Cerro Pelado Fire began "its uncontrolled devastation until it was finally extinguished on June 15, 2022."
The lawsuit contends that Forest Service employees "intentionally misrepresented" to the Washington state investigator that the pile burns were fully extinguished as of April 20, 2022, just days before the blaze erupted. Investigation reports included a statement from a Forest Service employee who said the piles had been checked "multiple times" in March 2022, but he couldn't give specifics about what days they were checked "due to my obligations with trainings, hiring, etc." The employee's name was redacted.
But the lawsuit contends there were no checks done.
"There is evidence that USFS employees did not perform any visual monitoring at any time between ignition of the pile burns and April 20, 2022," the lawsuit states. It also faults the agency for failing to make "immediate required notifications and initiate suppression after finding the smoldering burn piles."
