New Mexico Statutes Chapter 68. Timber § 68-5-2. Definitions

A. “certified prescribed burn manager” means a person certified pursuant to the prescribed burn manager certification program;

B. “department” means the energy, minerals and natural resources department;

C. “division” means the forestry division of the department;

D. “extension service” means the New Mexico state university cooperative extension service;

E. “pile burning” means the burning of vegetation, usually sticks, limbs or boles of trees and brush, resulting from land management activities, that have been stacked in piles, but does not mean the burning of a single or few small piles of yard waste or pruning debris on an individual's property; and

F. “prescribed burn” means the controlled application of fire to existing vegetative fuels through pile burning or the burning of vegetation over predefined areas under appropriate weather and environmental conditions for purposes of community protection, watershed resilience, silviculture, wildland fire hazard reduction, fuels reduction, rangeland improvement, wildlife management, habitat improvement, invasive species management and ecological maintenance or restoration, but does not include agricultural burning to clear fields of stubble or slash or to manage invasive species impacting crop production, as part of orchard management or to clear irrigation ditches of vegetation and debris in order to improve or restore efficient water flow and delivery.