NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!
FLAGSTAF, AZ the sky.
“It’s a very chaotic situation,” said Stuart Turner, a fire behavior analyst, during a briefing Friday night on the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. “We had extreme fire behavior all day.”
Firefighters working to keep homes burning on the edge of a northern Arizona mountain town were aided by light snow, scattered rains and lower temperatures early Friday. But the weather did not continue and more gusts were expected to hit parts of Arizona and all of New Mexico over the weekend.
Crews dealt with more than a dozen major fires across the country on Friday, according to the National Interdepartmental Fire Center. More than 1,600 firefighters battled six fires in New Mexico and three in Arizona that engulfed more than 100 square miles (258 square kilometers) of timber and shrubs.
A pair of resource advisers from the Coconino National Forest are recording data in the Alpha Division as they work to determine the severity of the impact of tunnel fires on the forest. April 21, 2022 near Flagstaff, Arizona (Tom Story / Northern Arizona Type 3 Incident Management Team, via AP)
By Friday afternoon, winds were blowing in New Mexico, reaching 75 miles per hour (120 km / h) near the Colorado line, enveloping the Rio Grande Valley with dust and pushing flames across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the north. Firefighters expected a fire northeast of Santa Fe to engulf several communities before Saturday.
ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED EXCLUSIVE SITUATION CONTINUES
A wall of smoke stretched from the desert just east of Santa Fe, about 80 km northeast, where farmers and other villagers were suddenly told to leave by law enforcement.
Maggie Mulligan, 68, of Ledoux, a dog breeder, and her husband, Brad Gombas, 67, left with nine dogs and five puppies packed in SUVs and an old blue Cadillac.
She said her dog Liam “was a nervous wreck” when a sheriff came to their house on Friday afternoon and told them to leave.
They agonized that they had to leave their horses as they rode 40 miles (65 km) north of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to a high school converted into a Red Cross shelter.
“We don’t know what’s next. We don’t know if we can go back to the horses,” Mulligan said. “There’s water in their pasture and there’s hay, so we’ll see what happens.”
Without air support or crews working directly on fire lines, there has been explosive growth in a number of fires. San Miguel County Sheriff Chris Lopez warned the situation was very dangerous.
THE HAND FOR RE-ELECTION OF THE SENATE GOP AIMS AT ARIZON’S CELLS FOR BORDER SECURITY IN A NEW BLITZ AD
Lena Attensio and her husband, whose family has lived in the nearby Rosiada area for five generations, went out on Friday as the winds picked up. She said people take the threat seriously.
“As a community, in general, everyone just comes together to support each other and just take care of the things we need now. And then at this point it’s in God’s hands, “she said as the wind blew miles away in the Las Vegas community, where evacuees gathered.
Another fire caused by the wind in northeastern New Mexico also forced the evacuation as the city of Simaron and the headquarters of the Filmont Scout Ranch, owned and operated by American Boy Scouts, prepared to flee if necessary. The scout ranch attracts thousands of summer visitors, but officials said there were no scouts on the property.
This Wednesday, April 20, 2022, a photo provided by Bill Wells shows his home on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona, destroyed by a wildfire on Tuesday, April 19, 2022. A wildfire forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes and animals. (Bill Wales via AP)
New Mexico Governor Michel Luhan Grisham has signed a state of emergency for four counties over the fires.
In Arizona, the flames raced through rural neighborhoods outside Flagstaff just days earlier. A break in weather on Thursday allowed helicopters to launch water on the fire and authorities to investigate the damage.
WILDFIRE in Arizona triples as THOUSANDS RUN AWAY FROM HOME
They found 30 homes and many other buildings were destroyed, with sheriff’s officials saying more than 100 properties were affected. The fire burned nearly 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) and forced the evacuation of 765 homes since last Sunday.
Authorities used alarms Thursday night to warn residents to flee evacuation areas, sheriff’s spokesman John Paxton said. Howling winds drowned out the alarms.
This Wednesday, April 20, 2022, a photo provided by Bill Wells shows his home on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona, destroyed by a wildfire on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 (Bill Wells via AP)
Kelly Morgan is among the neighbors at the end of the evacuation zone who have not left. She and her husband have experienced forest fires before, she said, and are prepared for the winds to move and the flames to rush to the home they moved to three years ago.
“Unfortunately, this is not something new for us … but I hate to see it when people are affected as they are now,” she said. “It’s sad. It’s a very sad time, but as a community we really got together.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
Forest fires have become a year-round threat to the West due to changing conditions, which include earlier melting of snow and rain coming later in the fall, scientists said. The problems have been exacerbated by decades of firefighting and mismanagement, along with more than 20 years of mega-drought, which studies link to man-made climate change.
The fire risk in the Denver area on Friday was the highest in more than a decade, according to the National Weather Service, due to off-season temperatures in the 1980s, combined with strong winds and very dry conditions. New evacuations were ordered Friday west of Colorado Springs, but there were no immediate reports of lost structures.
Add Comment