Smoke on the Horizon? A Checklist for Santa Fe Homeowners
If you've smelled smoke this week or noticed the light going orange in the afternoon, that's the Frijoles Fire — burning in the Pecos Wilderness roughly three miles southeast of Cundiyó, northeast of Santa Fe. It started with a lightning strike on August 4. Crews are working it hard, and evacuation orders so far are limited to specific areas near Cundiyó.
For most of us in Santa Fe, this is a smoke event, not a fire event. But it's also a good reminder. Living here means living in fire country, and the difference between a stressful week and a genuinely bad one usually comes down to work you did on an ordinary afternoon months earlier.
None of what follows takes long. Here's what I'd do this week.
1. Sign up for Alert Santa Fe (two minutes)
This is the single highest-value thing on the list. Alert Santa Fe sends emergency notifications, wildfire and prescribed-burn information, and severe weather warnings for the City and County of Santa Fe. You choose which categories you want. Sign up at santafecountynm.gov.
Also worth knowing: for fire information, use official channels rather than calling 911 or the sheriff's non-emergency line. During an active incident those lines need to stay open.
2. Pack a Go Bag
The New Mexico Forestry Division uses an easy shorthand — the Six P's:
People and pets
Papers, phone numbers, and important documents
Prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses
Photographs and irreplaceable memorabilia
Personal computer, hard drive, and disks
Plastic — credit cards, debit cards, and cash
Round that out with a three-day supply of non-perishable food and three gallons of water per person, a map with at least two evacuation routes, a first aid kit, a flashlight and battery-powered radio with extra batteries, chargers, a change of clothes, and pet food, water, bowls, and vaccination records.
One small thing that matters more than it sounds: keep sturdy shoes and a flashlight next to your bed. Evacuations happen at 2 a.m. more often than anyone expects.
3. Spend twenty minutes outside your house
Most homes lost in wildfires aren't consumed by a wall of flame. They're ignited by wind-blown embers that land in a gutter, on a doormat, or in the mulch against a foundation, sometimes miles ahead of the fire itself. Which is good news, because embers are something you can actually plan for. The NFPA's Firewise guidance comes down to seven simple actions:
Clear pine needles and dead leaves from roof, gutters, decks, porches, patios, and fence lines
Store away cushions, doormats, rattan mats, and potted plants from decks and porches
Screen and seal vents and other openings where embers can get inside
Rake landscaping mulch back at least five feet from the house, deck, and fence
Trim shrubs and branches within five feet of the house, plus anything overhanging
Remove woodpiles, spare lumber, and other large fuel sources within 30 feet
Close all windows, doors, and pet doors if you're ordered to evacuate
New Mexico's Ready, Set, Go! guide thinks about this in three defensible-space zones: Zone 1 (0–30 feet) uses hard surfaces and noncombustible materials, especially in the first five feet; Zone 2 (30–100 feet) breaks up continuous fuels into separated "islands" of vegetation; Zone 3 (100–200 feet) maintains at least 10 feet between treetops and removes ladder fuels that carry fire from the ground into the canopy.
Worth adding, since it's my line of work: defensible space is increasingly a property-value issue, not just a safety one. Insurers in the West have gotten far more selective about wildfire exposure, and clear, well-documented mitigation work can affect whether a home is insurable at a reasonable rate — which in turn affects what a buyer can pay for it. If you do this work, photograph it and keep the records.
4. The part everyone skips: documents and insurance
Photograph or video every room, including inside closets and cabinets, and store it somewhere that isn't your house. Cloud storage is fine. This is what makes a claim straightforward instead of an argument.
Check whether your policy is replacement cost or actual cash value, and whether the dwelling limit still reflects what it would actually cost to rebuild at today's Santa Fe construction prices. Many policies written five years ago don't.
Scan your important papers — deeds, titles, IDs, insurance policies, birth certificates — into a secure, password-protected digital space.
Pick an out-of-state contact everyone in the family can check in with. In a regional emergency, long-distance calls often go through when local ones won't.
If your issue is smoke, not fire
Smoke has been settling along I-25 and affecting Eldorado, Glorieta, Pecos, and Santa Fe. Check current conditions on the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map. Set your HVAC to recirculate, close the fresh-air intake, run a good filter, and designate one room you can keep closed off with a portable air cleaner. Keep an N95 on hand — a cloth mask does nothing for wildfire particulate.
Two more things
Please don't fly drones near a fire. A drone incursion last week forced aircraft to stand down on the Frijoles Fire. As the crews put it: if you fly, we can't.
Check on your neighbors — particularly anyone elderly, anyone with mobility limitations, and anyone with livestock or horses, who need considerably more lead time to evacuate than the rest of us.
Santa Fe has been through enough fire seasons to know that the calm version of this conversation is the useful one. An afternoon of preparation now buys you the ability to leave in ten minutes without thinking, and that's the whole goal.
If you'd like the Ready, Set, Go! guide or the Firewise checklist, I'm glad to send them along — just reach out.
Peter Bowen | Keller Williams Santa Fe 130 Lincoln Ave, Ste K, Santa Fe, NM 87501 (505) 988-7443 | peterbowen@kw.com New Mexico Real Estate License #54308
Fire details current as of August 11, 2026. For the latest status, see NM Fire Info, InciWeb, or Santa Fe County Fire. Preparedness guidance adapted from the New Mexico Ready, Set, Go! Action Guide, NFPA Firewise USA, the New Mexico Forestry Division, and Ready.gov.
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