Red River Ready – Red River Chamber of Commerce

Red River Ready: Why We're Building a Community Resilience Program - and Why It Matters Right Now

By Naoma STaley, CEO, Red River Chamber of Commerce

In the five years I've been in Red River, I've watched our community weather hard seasons. A hurricane-force windstorm in December 2021 tore through our forest. Hundreds of thousands of downed trees blocked our trails. In 2022, we watched the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn just to our south. It became the largest wildfire in New Mexico's history at 341,471 acres. The fire destroyed over 900 structures and forced more than 27,000 people to evacuate. Three summers of forest closures have tested every tourism-dependent business in town. Most recently, two tough winters with barely any snow have stretched our little tourist community thin.

Given these weather patterns, similar conditions seem likely to recur. Regardless of the exact events, they highlight the need for preparedness. Fires serve as warnings, and winters now often bring unusual warmth, little snow, and dry conditions that stretch everyone living and working in northern New Mexico's mountains. Our entire area struggles. Businesses feel the impact directly.

I am aware of these challenges. My responsibility, as I see it, is to help us stay focused and pursue new strategies to maintain what matters in Red River.

The Risk Is Real

Red River sits within the Carson National Forest. The stakes here are high. Kit Carson Electric Cooperative lists Red River and the Upper Valley among the highest-risk zones in the entire Carson National Forest for wildfire-related infrastructure damage. The Carson National Forest is considered one of the highest-risk national forests in the country. This distinction has the potential to carry serious effects for the businesses and families who depend on this landscape.

Northern New Mexico is no stranger to the devastation catastrophic fire can cause to a community. The Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire - started by a Forest Service prescribed burn that escaped control in April 2022 - triggered a federal disaster declaration, nearly $4 billion in congressional relief funding, and years of ongoing recovery that communities in San Miguel and Mora Counties are continuing to navigate. Three years later, researchers and recovery workers say they don't know anyone who has fully recovered or regained their equilibrium.

The national data on wildfire impacts is sobering. Research from the U.S. Forest Service found that, nationwide, only about 25% of buildings destroyed by wildfire are rebuilt within 5 years. In small, rural, tourism-dependent communities like Red River, the numbers are often worse. In remote areas, rebuilding rates after major fires have been as low as 13%. The Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, California. Six and a half years later, only 29% of the destroyed properties had building permits.

In wildfire regions, employment growth drops by 1.3% the year a fire occurs. The impact is more acute in tourism-dependent communities. After the 2023 Maui wildfires, West Maui was losing $9 million per day. Small business owners reported losing three-quarters of their revenue. Insurance has become harder to obtain in fire-prone areas, posing a genuine crisis. Insurers are leaving high-risk markets, raising premiums, and placing communities like ours in a precarious position.

Here's the number that stays with me: in a small community like Red River, if one structure is on fire, the risk to neighboring buildings rises sharply. Just a few buildings burning - or just one large one - can overwhelm our firefighting capacity. This is not hypothetical. Its simply our reality.

It is also not a reason to panic. Wildfire risk, forest closures, low-snow winters - these are the conditions of doing business here, and they are no longer surprises. And yet inevitably every season, somewhere in a meeting or a conversation, someone proverbially throws their hands up and asks "what do we DO?!," as if the answer is supposed to arrive by itself.

Here's what I think: we plan. We prepare. We build the capacity before we need it, so that when conditions get hard - and they will - we already know what to do, and we're prepared to do it. That's the whole idea behind Red River Ready. Not alarm. Not crisis mode. Just competent, consistent preparation, treated like the normal and necessary thing it is.

As CEO of the Red River Chamber of Commerce, that's the work I'm showing up to do. I'd love some company.

Pilot Year 2026

Red River Ready is a new community resilience program from the Red River Chamber of Commerce. The goal of this pilot is simple, and at the same time? Not simple at all: to find out whether doing this kind of work - together, in a room, over time - is something Red River's business community wants and needs. To see what we come up with when we actually sit down and think hard about the conditions we face. To build the habit of talking to each other directly, consistently, and candidly - and to find out whether the Chamber can be the place where that happens.

We're not presenting a finished product. We're showing up with a framework, a set of real questions, and a genuine belief that the people in this room have answers worth finding. The work we do together - session by session, business by business - is how this community gets better prepared for whatever comes next. That's the whole point.

The 2026 pilot year launches with three series:

Series 1

Beyond the Powder: Your Playbook for Thriving Regardless of the Forecast

Launching in May 2026, this series is built for Red River's low-snow winters, because great businesses don't wait for snow. The series helps businesses build strategies, plans, and a mindset to stay strong when forecasts fail. The journal-based format includes three working sessions plus a kickoff and celebration. You'll create a playbook you will actually use. Attendees will draft scripts for communicating with guests, sample itineraries and fun ideas for guests, operational pivots, and a unified community approach. When the snow doesn't come, Red River stays open for business.

We're launching this series now so the cohort can start their planning before next winter.

Series 2

Ahead of the Fire: Preparing Your Business for the Threat of Wildfire

Running summer 2026, this hands-on workshop series is for Red River businesses ready to examine their properties and operations. There are three 90-minute sessions, each with a small group of up to 10 businesses. Attendees will assess their property and identify risk. You'll leave each session with a concrete action list. Topics include the noncombustible zone, roof and vent hardening, deck risk, Red Flag Day operations, and a seasonal maintenance calendar.

Series 3

Forest Closure Playbook: Building Your Business Strategy for Every Level of Closure

Launching fall 2026. Forest closures - partial or full - are just part of doing business in Red River. This series gives businesses practical playbooks for each closure stage: light, moderate, and full. Attendees will draft scripts for communicating with guests, sample itineraries and fun ideas for guests, operational pivots, and a shared community message. When the forest is closed, Red River remains open.

Every participant in every series leaves with something tangible.

Each series is built around a workbook that attendees will fill in session by session, prompt by prompt, in their own words and for their own business. By the time the series ends, that workbook becomes the attendee's personal playbook: built by them, for them, specific to their property, guests, and their specific conditions. Not a generic handout. Not someone else's template. Theirs.

These are our founding cohorts. And their experiences, feedback, and the work they do this year will shape how this series runs in future years.

What the Pilot Year Will Produce

This program will equip our community with a structured learning process, practical resources, and measurable progress. Every session includes information collection and feedback. Each series will generate an individual report, and at the end of the pilot year, we'll publish a combined Red River Ready report to summarize the tools, strategies, and outcomes achieved by our business community.

That report will serve three audiences: our board and internal planning, grant funders and reporting requirements, and - most importantly - other mountain communities experiencing similar conditions. These communities need to know this kind of work is possible.

The founding cohort isn't just getting a workshop. They're helping build something that outlasts this year.

Register for the Pilot Year

Space in both summer series is intentionally limited to keep the conversations focused and the cohort strong. We are looking for businesses that are ready to show up, do the work, and be a part of something larger than themselves.

If this sounds like a good fit for your business, you are invited to participate.

To register for Ahead of the Fire or Beyond the Powder, contact: Barb Cerveny, Executive Admin at the Red River Chamber of Commerce at 575-754-2366 or email directly today!

Registration is open now and remains open until filled. Sessions begin May/June 2026.

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