Sara Jo Mathews and her family did their part to fight thewildfirethat ravagedNew Mexico. By the time it was over, her businesses had suffered substantial losses. She's still waiting for a payment from the federal government to help her recover.
The wait has been frustrating. But making matters worse: While she's in limbo, the government employee responsible for distributing payments to people whose homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged has already received a six-figure payment.
"They cannot figure out for the life of them how to pay us," said Mathews of Las Vegas, New Mexico, "but they sure as hell figured out how to pay themselves."
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Four years after the fire, the worst in New Mexico's history, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing questions about how it has administered a compensation fund set up by Congress to help the wildfire victims. Critics are demanding to know how the money has been distributed, who has received it and whether it's going to the people who need it most.
People who have filed claims complain that the review process has been complicated, frustrating and painstakingly slow and that cases are closed with no notice and no money awarded for their losses.
"Getting money fromFEMA, that's like getting blood from a rock," Mathews said. "They're not giving us anything."
On Thursday, Feb. 12, FEMA placed the director in charge of distributing the money and his deputy on administrative leave after revelations that each received six-figure payouts through the program while other victims are waiting for their claims to be processed.
Jay Mitchell, who works out of the FEMA claims office in Santa Fe, and his wife, Lisa, a real-estate broker, were awarded $524,000 through the compensation fund last year, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. The money was to be used to repair smoke and ash damage to the couple's home in Angel Fire, New Mexico, and to cover Lisa Mitchell's reported business losses, the documents say.
An independent news outlet calledSource New Mexicowas the first to report the payments.
Lisa Mitchell said in a brief phone interview with USA TODAY that she and her husband have been unfairly targeted. "We're being harassed for absolutely no wrongdoing," she said, declining to respond to a reporters' questions.
Jay Mitchell's deputy, Jennifer Carbajal, and a woman named Jennifer Sanchez, identified in local news reports as her ex-wife, also received $267,000 for smoke and ash cleaning and for flooding at a consulting business in Pendaries, New Mexico, the records show.
FEMA and Carbajal did not respond to requests for comment. But Paul Judson, a deputy assistant administrator in FEMA's headquarters in Washington, stressed in an email to staff of the Santa Fe office that the decision to place Mitchell and Carbajal on leave "does not reflect a finding of wrongdoing."
Judson did not say how long either would remain on leave or whether they will be paid while they are away. Juan Ayala, a senior FEMA official, will oversee the office's daily operations, he said.
Criticism of FEMA's handling of the payments comes as the agency is already under intense scrutiny in Washington. PresidentDonald Trump's administration has initiated a dramatic overhaul of the agency, which is responsible for coordinating the federal government's response to natural disasters. Trump has repeatedly characterized FEMA as ineffective and has pushed for states to have a larger role in disaster response.
Hundreds of jobs at the agency have been eliminated since Trump began his second term last year. A lawsuit filed in January by employees' unions and public interest groups says claims the Department of Homeland Security plans even deeper cuts, with more than 10,000 of the agency's roughly 20,000 employees expected to be terminated in the coming months.
Questions about the agency's handling of the compensation fund for the wildfire victims and the disclosure that Mitchell and Carbajal each received large payments have infuriated several of the state's elected leaders and families and business owners who are still waiting for their claims to be processed.
"It's a slap in the face that Mr. Mitchell and his wife got paid out," said Maria Lowe, a community activist who has been assisting people with their claims. "He should be ashamed of himself."
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'Like poking a rock with a stick'
Mathews and her family did what they could to help friends and neighbors as the flames scorched and scarred just about everything in their path.
They housed firefighter crews on their ranch. Her restaurant, the Prairie Hill Café, provided meals to neighbors whose homes or businesses were destroyed or heavily damaged. Her father, Oren Mathews, who owns a gravel and well-digging company, dispatched water trucks that helped save other people's homes.
Mathews vividly remembers riding in one of her father's water trucks through thick smoke as black as the night to help family members and other ranchers save their homes.
At one point, a state trooper who had blocked the road with his vehicle stopped them and said they would not be allowed to continue. It was too dangerous, he said. The truck driver, one of her father's employees, told the officer to move his car and let them through or he'd run over it.
"You'll have to shoot us to stop us," he said.
Mathews' father suffered smoke inhalation while helping battle the flames and had to be hospitalized. He now has permanent lung damage. But people like him weren't willing to watch their homes and ranches go up in flames without a fight.
"We're stewards of our land," Sara Jo Mathews said. "They were not going to abandon their ranch that's been here for generations and their sheep and their horses and their cows to let them burn. They stayed and fought."
The destruction from the inferno, known as the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, was surreal.
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More than 341,417 acres of rugged mountain terrain burned across three counties in northern New Mexico between early April and late June in 2022. The conflagration started as two separate fires – one that resulted when the U.S. Forest Service lost control of a prescribed burn at the base of Hermits Peak in the Pecos Wilderness, the other when a holdover burn pile from the previous winter reignited near Gallinas Canyon.
Heavy winds fanned the flames and merged the two fires into one. As many as1,400 structures, including houses, were destroyed. Dozens of others were damaged.
People lost homes, cars and trucks, businesses, livestock, pets, even their land. Buildings that were left standing suffered heavy smoke and ash damage. Flooding in the following weeks and months worsened the damage and the misery.
To help with the recovery, Congress created a special fund in September 2022 and provided $5.4 billion to compensate those who suffered losses. The goal was to set up a simple, expedited process to submit a claim. Jay Mitchell, who had worked for the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, was hired in April 2024 to oversee the FEMA claims office responsible for distributing the money.
But people who sought compensation say the process for filing claims was far from quick or easy.
FEMA demanded detailed paperwork, such as insurance forms or payroll records, that many mom-and-pop businesses didn't have. Some people filing claims complained that they spent hours gathering the necessary documents – only to have FEMA lose them and ask for them again.
As of Feb. 4, FEMA had paid 23,549 proof of loss claims totaling $3.36 billion, according to the office of Sen.Martin Heinrich, D-NM. How many claims are pending is unclear. FEMA did not respond to a request to provide those numbers. But community leaders say at least 73 people who suffered total losses to their homes or businesses are still waiting for their claims to be processed. The number of pending claims is likely significantly larger since people can file multiple claims.
Aninspector general's reportissued on Feb. 24, 2025, found that 13% of claims already filed were overdue a response. Specifically, FEMA had not acknowledged 1,508 of 11,695 active claims more than six months after they were filed, the report said.
Lowe said at least 20 of the 75 people she has helped with their claims are still waiting to hear how much money they'll receive, if any.
One of them is El Rialto Restaurant, a small family-owned eatery in Las Vegas, New Mexico, that has been in business for over half a century. The business was forced to shut down for extended periods during the fire and its aftermath, Lowe said. The owner filed a claim with FEMA in July 2024 to recover his losses, but nothing happened.
Lowe got involved, helped the owner find the necessary documents and filed them with FEMA. The "navigator," or FEMA employee assigned to the case, estimated the restaurant's losses at $180,000. Lowe thought they were higher, but was still gathering paperwork to make her case. The navigator advised them to sign the paperwork and said the loss estimate could be adjusted later, Lowe said.
Lowe was stunned when she discovered later that he had closed the case without telling them. The restaurant would get no money. When Lowe complained, the navigator suggested she should appeal and even said he thought she had a good case, she said.
"He just needed me to sign something so he could close out the case," a frustrated Lowe said. "He never had any intention of allowing us to submit further documentation."
Mathews said dealing with FEMA has been exasperating. "It's like poking a rock with a stick and saying, 'Move! Move! Move!'" she said.
Three members of New Mexico's congressional delegation – Heinrich, Sen.Ben Ray Lujanand Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez – say they have been working with claimants to help them get the money they are due.
In November, the three lawmakers, all Democrats, sent a letter to FEMA raising concerns about how the program had been administered, citing a lack of communication, trust and urgency by the agency. They demanded to know how many claims are outstanding, how many are tied up in appeals and how much of the funding has been spent on administrative costs.
FEMA has yet to respond, Heinrich's office said.
'A big problem'
The revelations that Mitchell and Carbajal had received six-figure payments added to the frustration. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the three Congress members have called for Mitchell's resignation.
"When the person in charge of claims moves himself to the front of the line and receives a half-million-dollar payout while thousands of others are still waiting to be made whole, that's a big problem," said the governor's spokesman, Michael Coleman.
If Mitchell refuses to resign, Coleman said, he should be fired immediately.
State Rep. Joseph Sanchez, a Democrat whose district in northcentral New Mexico was the epicenter of the fires, said residents of the impacted areas "deserve much better than how they have been treated by FEMA."
"Jay Mitchell just go," he said.
Families and businesses affected by the fire are hurting, but they'll survive, Mathews said. New Mexicans are strong, she said. Some live in communities that were founded centuries ago and are among the oldest in the nation.
"Long after the federal government forgets us, we'll be here, pulling each other up, helping one another," Mathews said. "We have survived because of our resilience and our close-knit communities. And we're not going to give up."
With or without the government's help.
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. A veteran reporter, he has covered the White House and Congress. Follow him on X: @mcollinsNEWS
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:A FEMA director got wildfire payments while New Mexico victims wait
