Desert Willow Fire victims get help cleaning properties

LOS LUNAS — Nathesa Slama lives in Huning Ranch on the west side of Los Lunas but says she has spent her time over the years in Puerto Rico, California, Florida, Chicago and Ruidoso.

She wasn’t vacationing though. Decked out in a red hoodie, she was part of the volunteer team from Team Rubicon, a humanitarian aid organization based in Los Angeles that helps clean up after disasters all over the United States and the world.

On Thursday morning she’s closer to home, helping clean up properties affected by the recent Desert Willow Complex fire in the bosque south of Main Street in Los Lunas.

“I had volunteered in other organizations, but Team Rubicon is more for me,” Slama said during a break from cleaning fire-retardent slurry from the mobile home on Santistevan Court SE, just feet from the burnt bosque trees and the Rio Grande. “I love being more hands-on, more in the dirt. It’s more of a family than other groups.”

Jeff Marshburn, the field leadership team leader for Team Rubicon in Los Lunas, explained the group’s goal is to assist communities and focus on recovery efforts. Helping vulnerable citizens by providing volunteers to help clean up is the usual modus operandi.

“We respond immediately after a disaster and help with recovery on the back end,” he said. “We also offer education to help communities a lot of times ... you can’t have all the brush up against your house if you’re in a high fire zone and all that kind of stuff.”

Marshburn, who came from his home in East Texas, said Team Rubicon works closely with local officials to give relief while avoiding causing more problems.

“We’ll contact emergency managers and say, ‘We know this happened; do you have a need? Is there something that we can come and help you do?’ Because we don’t want to negatively impact the disaster area either, where we come in and all of a sudden we’re pulling resources that the local community needs.”

In Los Lunas, Marshburn said the village alerted Team Rubicon of more than 40 houses that needed cleanup after the slurry drops during the fires. In four days on the ground, from June 30 through July 3, the team cleaned up 14 homes. He said a total of 10 to 12 local volunteers joined the effort, which included people from Albuquerque, Santa Fe and as far away as El Paso.

“We contacted all of those (residents) and a lot of them had already self-recovered,” Marshburn said, “or they said, ‘Hey, you know what? I don’t need the help, go help somebody else.’ Every location that was given to us we contacted or attempted to contact and helped if they wanted (help).”

Victoria Archuleta, senior economic developer for the village of Los Lunas, was the local point-person for the effort. She was also onsite several days volunteering. Even though she has no emergency response training, she said she was enlisted to help coordinate Team Rubicon on top of her normal duties.

“They just reached out and said, ‘Victoria, what can we do to help,’” she said. “And then when it was time to activate, I was just really grateful that I could just call them back and say, ‘Hey, OK, we have something now. We have volunteers coming in. Team Rubicon has made such an incredible difference. They come in with their power washers and a wealth of experience. I’m just really fortunate that I was able to help with this recovery effort because it’s important, you know, we’re a community.”