TAOS, N.M., (Reuters) – Thousands of residents of a northern New Mexico mountain valley were told to evacuate yesterday as a wildfire that has destroyed hundreds of structures threatened to overrun the valley within days, officials said.
People living in the Mora valley were told to leave after a wind-driven wildfire swept through farming villages and a resort community to the south, putting upwards of 10,000 under evacuation orders, local authorities said.
The blaze is tearing through parched coniferous forest and could reach the valley’s villages like Mora and Cleveland by Tuesday if firefighting efforts fail, fire behaviorist Stewart Turner told a press briefing.
Known as the Calf Canyon fire, the blaze is the most destructive of nearly two dozen sweeping the parched U.S. Southwest and has raised concerns the drought-hit region is in for a long, brutal fire year.
“It’s devastating and out of control,” Joy Ansley, San Miguel County Manager, said of the fire which is burning in mountains around 35 miles northeast of Santa Fe.
The fire exploded on Friday during a ferocious wind storm and has destroyed over 200 structures and burned 54,004 acres or 84 square miles, according to state and federal authorities. Around 5,000 residences have been told to evacuate, according to San Miguel County Sheriff Chris Lopez.
New Mexico is experiencing summer-like fire conditions in spring after climate change lowered snowpacks and allowed larger and more extreme fires to start earlier in the year, according to scientists.
As winds dropped on Sunday firefighters were able to gain 12 percent containment of the fire, struggling to save homes around villages like Rociada and Pendaries, according to U.S. Forest Service spokesman Michael Johnson.
With fires concentrated in the Southwest, the area burned by U.S. wildfires year-to-date is up around 30% from the 10-year average and nearly twice the figure at this point in 2021, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
