LOS ALAMOS — Los Alamos County Fire is turning to tech to mitigate fire danger in a county where big wildfires occur about once every decade.

Los Alamos County has entered into a seven-year contract with BurnBot, a California-based company, to clear fuel from the forest with two high-tech tools: a remote-controlled masticator that chews up the fuel and the company's eponymous "BurnBot," a vehicle that conducts prescribed burns in a chamber, then suppresses them — leaving behind a blackline, intended to prevent fires from spreading.

On Tuesday, the company was running two masticators across from the Los Alamos Airport near Canyon Rim Trail. New Mexico State Forestry employees and members of a fire crew from Sandoval County traveled to Los Alamos to see the tech in action.

The area was se

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