Still no replacement for wildfire claims office director, FEMA official says

The advocacy group Coalition for Fire Fund Fairness hosted a free screening on Monday night of an unfinished version of a documentary about survivors’ experiences called “Mora is Burning” at the Indigo Theater in Las Vegas. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

More than two-and-a-half months after the head of the federal office overseeing nearly $4 billion in compensation for Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon survivors stepped down, her replacement still hasn’t been named.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is in “the final stages” of hiring an operations director at the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Claims Office, said Colt Hagmaier, assistant administrator of the Recovery Directorate within the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA.

Angela Gladwell stepped down in January as part of what FEMA described as a “restructuring” of federal disaster response across New Mexico.

Hagmaier was speaking during a panel discussion at the Indigo Theater in Las Vegas, following a free screening of an unfinished version of a documentary about survivors’ experiences called “Mora is Burning” hosted by the advocacy group Coalition for Fire Fund Fairness.

New Mexico’s congressional delegation over the weekend issued statements commemorating the fire’s two-year anniversary, which was on Monday.

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández on Saturday said FEMA “must find a new director who knows New Mexico, who knows the uniqueness of our communities, and most importantly, who is dedicated to fully compensating those who lost so much as quickly and as painlessly as possible and to the fullest amount the law allows.”

Source New Mexico ’s Patrick Lohmann moderated the panel on Monday and asked Hagmaier if he could commit to Leger Fernández’s demand.

“I can commit to you that we are hiring someone who understands the mission in New Mexico,” Hagmaier said.

In Hagmaier’s nine visits to the state and reading about the communities around the Sangre de Cristo mountains, he said he’s learned people in the area do not have much reason to trust the federal government because “history has not been kind to this part of the country.”

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“I think it’s important we hire someone who understands that history, understands the multiple cultural communities, and does not make the mistake that I did of assuming that Las Vegas and Las Alamos and Mora are all the same — because they’re not,” he said. “I’ve learned that, and I don’t want to hire somebody who doesn’t already know that.”

Earlier in the night, Hagmaier acknowledged it was a mistake that under the interim rules governing how survivors could make claims to FEMA that were published in November 2021, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Claims Office restricted the amount paid for “trees and other landscaping to 25% of the pre-fire value of the structure and lot” on which they stood.

That language was copied from the Cerro Grande Fire Assistance Act, which refers to a 2000 wildfire that burned in and around Los Alamos, N.M. That fire was also started as an escaped prescribed burn on federal land.

The Cerro Grande Fire affected a very different community, one where many victims were wealthy, federal employees living in insured homes. Trees were most often used as landscaping, not for subsistence or income as they are in the burn scar of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire.

“I made mistakes,” Hagmaier said. “I assumed this would be very similar to Cerro Grande. It’s nothing like Cerro Grande.”

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The final rules for Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire claims, which went into effect August 2023, removed that 25% cap.

Hagmaier then apologized for the fire and the challenges survivors have faced.

“I don’t know if anyone has ever apologized to you,” Hagmaier said. “But I will tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the fire. I’m sorry about the challenges you’ve faced. I’m sorry that things have taken as long as they have.”

Hagmaier said FEMA “went through the standard recruitment process” and “anyone was free to apply.”

“We want to make sure the operations are happening here in New Mexico, and being led in New Mexico,” Hagmaier said.

Oversight and management of the compensation program will still be based out of FEMA headquarters in Washington D.C., he said, while day-to-day operations will be based out of FEMA Region 6, based in Texas.

New Mexico Lt. Gov. Howie Morales said during the panel that it’s “absolutely critical that we have a director that’s named, and we have a person who understands the stories, who understands New Mexicans, and understands the generations of livelihoods that were lost.”

The film shows Gladwell explaining how survivors who are dissatisfied with an administrative appeal of their claims can file a civil lawsuit in “the United States District Court of Mexico.”

Manny Crespín Jr., founder of the advocacy group Coalition for Fire Fund Fairness and vice chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, emceed a documentary screening and panel discussion on Monday night in Las Vegas. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)

Morales on Monday reminded people about this gaffe, saying survivors need “an individual who understands that we’re not a district of Mexico, but we have a person who calls Nuevomexico home.”

Before the screening, former state attorney general Hector Balderas appeared via Zoom and said this isn’t the first time the federal government has failed the people of New Mexico.

Balderas, who is originally from Wagon Mound in Mora County, listed DEA and FDA’s failures that led to opioid pills flooding the state, the federal government siding with Texas in a water rights case, and the EPA’s failure to protect New Mexico rivers after the Gold King Mine spill.

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“New Mexico has been successful in the past at recovering billions of dollars,” Balderas said. “I have no doubt that we will have to enforce law and protect our rights. This is not a place that we haven’t been before.”

Fire survivors preserve their right to sue

Toby Dolan, one of the survivors who also spoke during the panel, said he has seen neighbors die before they were fully compensated.

Also on Monday, two law firms representing 2,434 Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire survivors announced they have submitted documents to FEMA to preserve their clients’ rights to recover damages.

The $3.95 billion fund passed by Congress was meant to avoid lawsuits against FEMA, however, the law firms say they have no choice but to file these claims in court because the law requires people make a claim to FEMA within two years of the fire, and at this point FEMA has only given out about 10% of the money.

“While we remain hopeful that FEMA will finally get its act together and begin processing claims in accordance with the (Hermit’s Peak Fire Assistance Act), we simply cannot allow the clock to expire on victims’ ability to recover damages through the federal court system,” said Brian Colón, a managing partner at Singleton Schreiber.

The law firms also filed on behalf of Mora County, Las Vegas City Public Schools, Mora Independent School District and the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative, Colón said in a brief phone interview.

Antonia Roybal-Mack, founder and managing partner at Roybal-Mack & Cordova, said the U.S. government “failed the people of Northern New Mexico when it put FEMA in charge of their recovery.”

“FEMA has regularly violated peoples’ right to counsel and right to swift payment for losses. This filing preserves peoples’ legal right to seek recourse if FEMA continues to disregard basic legal rights,” Roybal-Mack said.

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