Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

If you live in privatized base housing, almost certainly not—most military housing leases at Cannon AFB prohibit solid-fuel-burning appliances outright, and any modification would need sign-off from the base's housing management office, which typically isn't granted for wood stoves due to fire code and liability concerns. If you own a home off base in unincorporated Curry County—around Texico, or the rural stretches toward Melrose—a wood stove is permitted with a standard county building permit and EPA-certified equipment. The distinction really comes down to whether you're on base or off it.

Two things work against it. First, the climate is genuinely mild for a wood-heat market—winter lows averaging 26°F and a heating load that's a fraction of what's seen in places like Bozeman, MT or Minneapolis, MN where wood stoves are a default choice. Second, Curry County sits on the flat, largely treeless Llano Estacado, so there's no local timber supply the way there is in mountain or forested regions. Between the mild winters and the lack of a nearby woodlot, propane and electric heat simply make more practical sense for most households here.

Because demand is low, few dealers in the Clovis/Cannon AFB area stock wood stoves or inserts, so pricing tends to run on the higher side of typical once you factor in a specialty order and full Class A chimney venting for a home that likely doesn't already have masonry flue. Expect somewhere in the $3,500 to $7,500 range for a freestanding stove with new venting, depending on the model and how much chimney work is involved. Get a firm quote from a dealer who actually services this area rather than a big-box estimate—venting a home without an existing chimney is where costs swing the most.

There's no national forest inside Curry County, so most firewood sold locally is trucked in rather than cut nearby. Pinyon, juniper, and ponderosa pine—sourced from stands closer to the Sacramento Mountains or Lincoln National Forest to the west—are the species you'll typically find from local sellers around Clovis and Portales. Expect to pay a premium compared to mountain towns where cutting permits and standing timber are close by; there isn't a comparable self-cut option in this county.

Yes, off base. Curry County's building department requires a permit for new wood-burning appliance installations, and the unit itself needs to meet current EPA emissions standards. On base, the process is different and generally moot—installations of solid-fuel appliances aren't approved in privatized family housing, so the question rarely gets past the housing office's initial review.

Curry County doesn't deal with the winter temperature inversions that trigger burn bans in mountain valleys like Klamath Falls, OR. The air quality concern that does come up locally is wildfire smoke during dry summer and fall stretches, which occasionally prompts outdoor burning restrictions from the county or state forestry office. That's separate from indoor wood stove use, which isn't restricted on air-quality grounds here—the bigger obstacle is simply whether your home is allowed to have one in the first place.

Pellet stoves face the same uphill climb as wood here—like wood, pellet is a low-relevance fuel for this market, and few local dealers stock them for the same reasons: mild winters and prohibitions in base housing. Regional pellet brands like Forest Energy and Lignetics are available through distributors serving eastern New Mexico, but you'll likely need to special-order through a dealer rather than find units on a showroom floor. If you're off base and set on a wood-pellet appliance, it's workable, just not a common local install.

Propane and natural gas fireplaces or furnaces are the standard choice in this area, along with electric heat pumps and ductless mini-splits. Southwestern Public Service Co. and Farmers Electric Cooperative serve the area at residential rates around 13.4 and 12.9 cents per kWh respectively—reasonable enough that electric resistance and heat-pump heating are practical options alongside gas. For most households here, a gas insert or fireplace ends up being the realistic upgrade rather than anything wood-burning.

For nearly everyone in this market, gas wins by default: it's allowed in base housing (subject to base approval for gas log inserts in some units), doesn't require a fuel supply chain that has to be trucked in from out of county, and matches the area's moderate heating needs without any hauling or ash cleanup. Wood only makes sense for a specific case—an off-base home on rural acreage, a homeowner who wants backup heat independent of the electric grid, or someone who simply wants the ambiance of a real fire and is willing to source firewood from outside the county. If that's not your situation, a gas fireplace or insert is almost certainly the more practical path.

An insert does two things: it seals the chimney completely, so you stop losing air you already paid to heat, and it radiates warmth into the room through the firebox and glass. Most add a heat-exchange fan that pulls cool room air underneath, wraps it around the hot firebox, and pushes it back out warm. Your home is more efficient before you've even lit the first fire.

Open fireplaces suck—literally. As the fire burns, it consumes air your furnace already paid to heat and pulls it out through the chimney, so the house is actually colder after the fire goes out than before you lit it. An insert fixes this: it seals the chimney, puts fixed glass across the front, and turns that hole in your house into a real heat source.

If you're putting a fire in your house on purpose, it's best to work with an expert. Unless you're genuinely experienced in framing, gas line, vent pipe, and the national code on clearances to combustibles, have a professional do it—and ideally the same company that sells you the fireplace, so warranty, service, and liability all live under one roof.

Yes—by creating a comfort zone. A furnace heats every square foot of the house just to warm the one room you're in; a gas fireplace on low burns roughly a sixth of the gas a typical furnace does. Set the furnace around 55–60 degrees as a baseline, then heat the rooms your family actually uses. Families who heat this way commonly save $20–$60 a month.