Calmer weather in northern New Mexico is helping more than 1,000 firefighters battling the country’s largest active wildfire
From PAUL DAVENPORT ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 30, 2022, 8:47 p.m.
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SANTA FE, New York – More than 1,000 firefighters, backed by bulldozers and planes, battled the largest active wildfire in the United States on Saturday after strong winds pushed it across some containment lines and closer to a small town in the north. part of New Mexico.
Preliminary overnight maps showed the fire, which burned at least 166 homes, rose from 103 square miles (266 square kilometers) on Friday to 152 square miles (393 square kilometers) earlier Saturday, they said. employees.
Ashes carried 7 miles (11 kilometers) through the air fell on Las Vegas, with a population of about 13,000, and firefighters were trying to prevent the fire from approaching, said Mike Johnson, a spokesman for the fire department.
Calmer winds on Saturday helped put out the blaze as gusts accelerated the fire to a point on Friday when “we watched the fire march about a mile every hour,” said Jason Cole, a firefighter.
The gusts of wind reached 65 mph (105 kmh) on Friday before easing as night approached. Until Saturday, planes that emit flammable substances and water may resume flights to help ground crews and bulldozers.
The rapid escalation of the fire on Friday forced the crews to change positions many times due to threatening conditions, but they were able to immediately rejoin without being forced to retreat, Coyle said. No casualties were reported.
“It’s like winking at everyone out there who made good decisions on the go with limited information in a chaotic environment with a direct personal threat,” Cole said. “They did a great job.”
The winds for the first time sent the flames to advance fiercely on April 22 in the northern landscape of New Mexico. Since then, crews have worked to reduce damage to the structure by installing sprinklers, pumps and hoses and clearing vegetation around buildings, officials said.
With this work and five times as many firefighters now working with the fire, they were in a much better position than a week earlier and were on track to make “huge progress”, Carl Schwop, commander of the management team, said on Friday. of the incident.
Saturday’s fire was contained in about a third of its larger perimeter, just below Thursday. The fire started on April 6th, when a prescribed fire set by firefighters to clear small trees and shrubs that could ignite fires was declared out of control. This fire then merged with another forest fire a week ago.
With the recent rise in the fire, estimates of people forced to evacuate mostly rural areas plus a unit near Las Vegas have doubled from 1,500 to 2,000 to between 3,000 and 4,000, said Jesus Romero, assistant manager for San Miguel County.
Authorities said the fire destroyed 277 structures, including at least 166 homes. No updated damage estimates were available on Saturday, Romero said.
Forest fires are still burning on Saturday in other places in New Mexico and Arizona. The fires burn unusually hot and fast at this time of year, especially in the southwestern part, where experts say some of the region’s wood is drier than kiln-dried wood.
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.
In northern Arizona, firefighters are nearing complete control of a 30-square-mile (77-square-kilometer) fire that destroyed at least 30 homes near Flagstaff and forced hundreds to evacuate. On Friday, a national forest fire management team of the highest level returned oversight to local fire brigades.
Arizona National Forests has announced it will impose fire restrictions from next Thursday that limit campfires to developed recreation areas and restrict smoking inside vehicles, other enclosed spaces and recreation areas.
“Given the current drought conditions and the ‘very high’ level of fire risk, this is too risky for these activities,” said Taiga Rohrer, a firefighter in the Tonto National Forest.
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Davenport reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press writer Felicia Foneca of Flagstaff and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to the report.
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