Catron County Community Wildfire Protection Plan
COMMUNITY PROFILE

County Description

Catron County, at 6,898 square miles, is the largest county in New Mexico. It is located in the west-central part of the state along the Arizona border.

The county is bounded by Cibola County on the north, Socorro and Sierra Counties on the east and Grant County to the south. The County is about 180 air miles due northwest of El Paso, Texas, 120 air miles southwest of Albuquerque, 200 air miles northeast of Tucson, AZ.

Land Ownership	Acres
National Park Service	405
Tribal	13,024
State	510,905
Bureau of Land Management	585,666
National Forest	2,192,608
Private	1,134,589
Table # 2

With a 2004 estimated population of 3,4401, Catron County is one of the least populated counties in the lower 48 states, partially due to the fact that over 75% of the county is public land administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, other Federal agencies, and the New Mexico State Land Trust.

Reserve ( population 985 in 2000)2, the county seat, is the only incorporated community in the county.

Glenwood (pop. 557) , Quemado (pop. 781), and Datil (621)3 are the major communities with additional smaller population centers sparsely dispersed throughout the county, mostly in the western and northern areas.

Other political subdivisions in the county include portions of the Gila, Cibola, and Apache National Forests, and the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Within these National Forests are the Gila and Blue Range Wilderness Areas. There are three Soil and Water Conservation Districts: Quemado, Salado and San Francisco.

1 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, estimated population 2004. Note population in 20 00 was 2,543
2 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000
3 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000

land ownership map      E-911 address map

Catron County has experienced an influx of new residents in the past decade due to its aesthetics and location (central to Tucson/Phoenix, El Paso and Albuquerque), as well as to low property prices and low property taxes.. Due to economic pressures, large tracts of privately owned land, generally ranches, have been sold off to land developers. These parcels of private land are being developed into summer vacation homes and primary residences at a significant rate, as is demonstrated in the chart, below.

Chart # 1

Note that the most recent subdivisions (25% of the total) were recorded in only five years. At the time the data for the graph above was collected there were over 5800 lots on 84 recorded subdivisions. Since then, there have been more than a dozen additional subdivisions recorded.

Current and future subdivisions continue to increase the complexity of the wildland/urban interface as the communities grow in close proximity of the Gila National Forest, Cibola National Forest, Bureau of Land Management administered lands and New Mexico State Trust lands. As the number of subdivisions and concurrent population rises, the potential for catastrophic wildland/urban interface fires will only worsen if the unhealthy state of forest on both public and private lands are left unmanaged.

Subdivision map       next page ->