About 1/3 of those who lost homes in Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire have gotten final payment offers

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

The federal office overseeing compensation for New Mexico’s biggest-ever wildfire has finally released numbers showing it has made final payment offers to about a third of people who lost their homes in the blaze more than two years ago.

New Mexico’s congressional delegation had been pressing the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire claims office for that number and other information, asking what was taking so long.

The claims office — overseen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — is tasked with paying out nearly $4 billion in compensation for the fire, caused by botched prescribed burns in early 2022. According to the latest figures, it’s paid out about $1.5 billion of that, including for lost business revenue, reforestation and homes lost in the fire.

As of Nov. 20, the office had received 272 claims for total losses of homes in the wildfire, according to responses the federal office gave to questions members of the delegation sent earlier this month. 

Of those, 174 claimants received at least partial payments for their losses, and 98 of them received a final payment offer, according to the response letter shared with the delegation early last week and provided Wednesday to Source New Mexico.

It’s not clear from the response letter how much has been paid to those who lost their homes, or how many of the homeowners accepted the final payment offer, which is known as a “letter of determination.” Claimants who are unhappy with the amount the office offered can appeal. 

The status of those who lost their homes in the fire has been an open question for months. A group of protesters gathered in front of the office’s Santa Fe headquarters in late October, calling on the office to prioritize compensation for those who lost their homes over more-trivial losses like smoke damage. 

The office had paid about $400 million for smoke damage to about 4,200 claimants in a 2,200-square-mile area as of Sept. 25, using an internal map and a standardized calculator to quickly distribute payments averaging $94,500 each. 

U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, as well as U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, all New Mexico Democrats, sent a letter Nov. 1 to the office’s leadership, saying “many New Mexicans continue to wait for the relief and compensation they are owed.” The letter asked 13 questions on a range of topics. 

Heinrich also questioned FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell about the issue during a hearing two weeks later. Heinrich told Criswell it seemed to him that those who lost everything in the fire were at the back of the line and asked her what the claims office was doing to address it.

Criswell responded that total-loss claims are more complicated and take more time, but the office has increased staff this year to handle the deluge of claims. The deadline to file an initial claim for losses incurred in the fire and ensuing floods, known as a “notice of loss,” is Dec. 20.

The claims office response letter also says officials created a “reconstruction team” that is entirely focused on compensating those who suffered a total loss of their primary or secondary homes. 

The back-and-forth over delays in compensation occurs as an additional $1.5 billion in compensation hangs in the balance. President Joe Biden carved out the extra funding for wildfire survivors in a nearly $100 billion disaster response package he’s hoping Congress will approve by the end of the year. 

If approved, that would bring the total awarded for compensation $5.45 billion for the state’s biggest-ever wildfire, one that destroyed several hundred homes and burned through a 534-square mile area. 

Spokespersons for Heinrich and Luján did not respond to requests for comment on the office’s response letter. 

The delegation is hopeful legislation will extend the deadline from the rapidly approaching Dec. 20 deadline, but they urged those who suffered losses to apply right away, given the uncertainty with a new Congress and a narrow timeframe. 

Office defends food loss policy

One of the 13 questions the delegation asked related to how the office pays people for food lost in the fire. Across the burn scar, many families in rural areas kept stores of food in extra freezers, which were either destroyed or stopped working amid widespread power outages during the fire. 

FEMA’s claims office pays people for lost food based on the gender and age of the claimant, based off another federal agency’s guidance. A man aged 19 to 50 receives $104.70 for a week’s worth of lost food. A woman in the same age range gets $93.

The policy is based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s food plans, which the agency says have been created since 1894 to “illustrate how a healthy diet can be achieved at various costs.”

The delegation’s Nov. 1 letter asked the claims office how it was “ensuring equity in food loss payments,” and, if it were to change its policy to make it more equitable, how it could make up the difference to those who had previously been shortchanged.

The office’s response letter says leaders have no intention of changing the food loss policy, however. It did a “thorough review” of the process after consulting with Heinrich’s office and the USDA. 

“Our review concluded that our current standardized rates for food loss are consistent with the methodology used in the creation of the USDA Food Plan tables,” the letter reads. 

Some wildfire survivors told Source New Mexico they thought the process was unnecessarily complicated and unfair. The office has previously said it cannot calculate how much money has been paid to date for food losses, including how much more men have been paid than women. 

The office, in its response, also doubled down on its practice of paying different hourly wages based on the county in which do-it-yourself repairs were done. The same work would be reimbursed at $18.97 an hour in Mora County, for example, versus $29.49 an hour in Santa Fe County. 

It said the hourly wages were calculated based on analyses of Census and federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which considered the costs of goods and services that are typically higher in urban areas than rural areas. 

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico.