Gila Wildfires Threaten Wildlife Industry

The oaks and the pines are not the only things dying in the Gila National Forest.

“It’s just devastated,” outfitter and hunting guide Billy Lee says of the forest. “I don’t know how these people are going to make it.”

Those “people” Lee refers to are wilderness guides in the area surrounding New Mexico’s historic Silver City, who make their livings on the nature-tourism industry in the forest. Springs and summers are generally when tourism-industry professionals make their money for the year — but this year, it will not be possible.

Fire crews are still trying to contain the wildfire ripping through the Gila National Forest. It has currently burned more than 278,000 acres and is only 37-percent contained. The fires have pushed out wildlife unique to the area — elk, deer and bears are all migrating away from the fires, officials say.

Along with the migration of the animals, tourists are staying at bay as well. Mountain guides, who a few months ago were getting ready for a busy season, are now having to make other plans.

“Hay is at $20 a bail,” Lee says, about the horses he uses for his guided hunts into the wilderness. “It’s just too expensive. And now, nobody’s coming, and if you want to take a group out, you have to haul the horses in trailers to another part of the forest.”

Lee has had to take up a second job as a nurse. Other hunting guides are canceling pre-booked fall trips altogether.

But there could be a bright side to all of the devastation, experts say.

“Once the fire is out and the rains come, they should return,” wilderness ranger trails specialist John Kramer said. “The canopy will have opened up, and you’ll see all of those animals coming back.”

Some wilderness experts describe the scene after the fire has been extinguished. Once the showers fall upon the forest in the mid-summer months, new growth will begin sprouting from the fertile blanket of ash left behind from the Whitewater-Baldy Fire. Because it will be less obstructed and easily reachable for big game in the area, experts say a sort of “candyland” will emerge, and the animals will come back.

But not everyone agrees.

“They didn’t come back after the last big fires from a few years ago,” Lee said. “That fire burned everything right down to the dirt. Nothing will grow there now, and it’s been years.”