The board of county commissioners of each county in this state, through which any line of railroad is operated or may hereafter be operated, shall have power, subject to the limitations in the three succeeding sections [63-3-26 to 63-3-28 NMSA 1978] contained, by an order to be entered of record, to require every railroad corporation oprating [operating] a line of railroad in their respective counties, to plow as a fireguard through such portions of said counties as shall be specially designated in such order, a continuous strip of no more than six feet in width, which said strip of land shall run parallel with said line of railroad, and be plowed in such good and workmanlike manner as to effectually destroy and cover the vegetation thereon, and be sufficient to prevent the spreading of fires; and the outer line of said strip of plowed land shall be upon the outer line of the rights of way of such railroad corporation, not to exceed however, one hundred feet from the center of the track of the railroad. And such railroad corporations shall, in addition to the plowing of such strip, in each and every year burn off, or remove all dry grass or dead and dry vegetation, as soon as the same becomes sufficiently dry to burn, between said plowed strip and the track of such road or roads: provided, however, that such plowing and burning be done between the fifteenth of July and the first day of October, in each and every year: provided, further, that the board of county commissioners shall each year serve said railroad corporations with a duly certified copy of the order, designating the particular localities where such plowing and burning shall be done, in each of said counties, at least thirty days before the said fifteenth day of July; and such fireguards need not be constructed, or burning done within the limits of any city or town, nor along the line of railroads running through mountains or other lands impracticable to plow, nor where such plowing and burning, as aforesaid, would be of no practical utility.

History: Laws 1884, ch. 34, § 1; C.L. 1884, § 2723; C.L. 1897, § 3904; Code 1915, § 4744; C.S. 1929, § 116-713; 1941 Comp., § 74-326; 1953 Comp., § 69-3-28.

Bracketed material. — The bracketed material was inserted by the compiler and is not part of the law.

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — 74 C.J.S. Railroads § 435.