White Rock Library Hosts Free Wildfire Preparedness Workshop April 16

The Los Alamos Fire Department's Wildland Division Chief Van Leimer will personally lead a wildfire preparedness session at the White Rock Branch Library next week, putting one of the county's top fire officials in front of neighborhood residents weeks before summer fire conditions typically set in across northern New Mexico.

The free program, titled "Discover! Wildfire Preparedness 101," runs from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, in the multipurpose room at the White Rock Branch Library. Co-presented by the library and the LAFD, the session is aimed at adults and covers the ground-level decisions that determine how well a home and a family withstand a wildfire event.

Chief Van Leimer is expected to address four areas: creating and maintaining defensible space around residential structures, planning and rehearsing evacuation routes, assembling emergency kits, and identifying authoritative local sources of information once an incident is active. The last point carries particular operational weight in Los Alamos County, where incident communications can move fast and unofficial information spreads faster.

The April 16 event is part of a broader spring outreach push by the County, which earlier held a Wildland Fire Day at Ashley Pond Park. The library session extends that effort directly into White Rock, a community whose residential edges meet heavily forested slopes where the interface between homes and fire terrain is especially compressed.

Attendance is free and the County has not indicated registration is required. Those with questions specific to their property configuration, pets, or eldercare logistics are well-positioned to bring those directly to Chief Van Leimer, whose operational background with LAFD gives him a more precise lens on local hazard conditions than a general preparedness curriculum typically provides. The White Rock Branch Library can be contacted for accessibility accommodations ahead of the event.