Wildland Urban Interface

The USFS, Silvis Lab developed a statewide WUI layer (see metadata for more
information). New Mexico State Forestry provided Community Wildfire Protection
Plans, developed by individual counties and communities. These plans identified WUI
areas. CWPPs for 26 of 33 counties have been completed and are available. The Silvis
WUI and CWPP WUI layers were combined, except where county CWPPs had identified the
entire county as a WUI. These large CWPP identified WUI areas were removed because
the technical team did not want to bias the statewide prioritization towards
counties that had taken a more general approach to identifying WUI and away from
counties that had identified smaller WUI areas. For this reason, the technical team
recommended removal of large blocks of CWPP identified WUI areas in Torrance and
Socorro County as well. However, it is important to note that the CWPP identified
WUI areas that were removed should be still be considered priorities for planning,
particularly at county level. The Silvis WUI and CWPP WUI were combined