Hermits Peak–Calf Canyon, New Mexico
In the spring of 2022, the Hermits Peak–Calf Canyon Fire became the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. Burning over 341,000 acres in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it displaced thousands of families in the Mora and Las Vegas valleys and tore through centuries-old acequia communities, reshaping traditional land-based ways of life across the Mora River watershed.
Field Video Documentation
Video placeholder: Embed field footage or oral histories documenting the Hermits Peak–Calf Canyon Fire and its aftermath.
Watershed & Place
Hermits Peak–Calf Canyon sits high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where snowmelt and summer rains feed the Mora River watershed. From steep, forested headwaters, water moves through montane meadows, mixed-conifer slopes, and piñon-juniper foothills before turning toward the plains.
For generations, acequia systems have carried this water out across the Mora and Las Vegas valleys. Hand-dug ditches, community-maintained headgates, and shared governance practices have tied families to land, soil, and seasonal cycles. The 2022 fire destabilized slopes above these acequias, increasing flood and debris flows and threatening the continuity of these communal lifeways.
The Sangre de Cristos here are a meeting place of languages, histories, and jurisdictions: Pueblo and Genízaro homelands, Hispano land grants, national forest and wilderness. Post-fire, this layered geography shapes how restoration unfolds along ridgelines, arroyos, and the Mora River itself.
Visual Record
Pre-Disaster
Caption placeholder: Describe the Mora River watershed, acequia landscapes, and forest conditions before the Hermits Peak–Calf Canyon Fire.
Disaster
Caption placeholder: Document fire behavior, smoke plumes, evacuations, or impacts to acequias and homes during the event.
Post-Disaster
Caption placeholder: Show burn scars, flood impacts, erosion control, forest treatments, or community-led restoration in the Mora River watershed.
Associated Stories
Placeholder: Add links to oral histories, interviews with acequia commissioners and land grant heirs, accounts of evacuation and return, and documentation of ongoing recovery work in the Mora and Las Vegas valleys.