Date and Time - August 6, 7:00 PM

Location - Sandia Ranger Station conference room

Program abstract - The Bernalillo District serves eight of the state’s counties: Cibola, McKinley, Valencia, Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance, Los Alamos and Santa Fe. Located in west-central New Mexico, the Bernalillo District totals 6.6 million acres. This consists of 160,000 acres of commercial forest, 1.54 million acres of piñon-juniper and bosque woodland, and 4.9 million acres of non-forest watershed. The district office is located off Highway 550 on Santa Fe Hills Blvd., approximately two miles north of the intersection at State Road 528 that goes through Rio Rancho.

Each year district staff assist hundreds of landowners and fire departments by providing field visits, written management plans, and partnership of forest conservation practices. These practices include thinning and tree planting projects, workshops on forest and watershed health, and fire training. Staff also review commercial harvesting on private lands to assure compliance with state harvesting regulations. More than 200 wildland fires occur annually on state and private lands within the district.

Speaker bio - Lawrence Crane is the District Forester for the Bernalillo District. Lawrence has been with the Forestry Division since 2003, including working as the district’s Special Projects Forester for many years. In the District Forester role, he oversees multiple programs including fire, timber, stewardship, wildland-urban interface, and special projects. Lawrence also conducts environmental outreach efforts and leads mapping projects. and acts as the primary Line Officer and agency administrator for large fire incidents on all non-municipal non-federal lands within the Bernalillo District boundaries. Lawrence has worked for the Forest Service on the Bridger Teton National Forest, Duke City Lumber Company, and Rio Grande Forest Products. He is a 1984 graduate of Northern Arizona University with a degree in Forestry.  Lawrence loves to build with Lego, woodworking, and anything he can do with his family.