New Mexico faces a long and potentially devastating wildfire season, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Saturday, as Southwestern wildfires cause destruction and force people from their homes.
Hundreds of structures were lost in a growing number of wind-driven blazes across drought-stricken New Mexico, Lujan Grisham said Saturday.
Over 20 active wildfires were burning in at least 16 of the state’s 33 counties, in the wake of winds that gusted up to 90 mph on Friday, Lujan said during a briefing streamed online. “So half the state has a fire issue.”
With so many fires burning in April, well before the normal May or June start of the wildfire season, “our risk season is incredibly and dangerously early,” Lujan Grisham said.
Wildfire has become a year-round threat in the West given changing conditions that include earlier snowmelt and rain coming later in the fall, scientist have said. The problems have been exacerbated by decades of fire suppression and poor management along with a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change.
New Mexico as of Saturday had the most major wildfires burning of any state, though neighboring Arizona also had large fires that included one that burned 30 homes near Flagstaff on Tuesday.
Winds and temperatures in New Mexico diminished Saturday but remained strong enough to still fan fires, and dozens of evacuation orders remained in place.
Over 200 structures have burned, Lujan Grisham said, not providing specifics on locations or the numbers of homes included in that count.
With fires still burning and charred areas too dangerous to enter, “it’s not safe for you or us to have a complete assessment to date,” she said, indicating that the number of lost structures would rise.
She appealed to residents to refrain from using fireworks or burning trash and to evacuate when fire warnings are issued. “You need to leave. The risks are too great,” she said.
The largest blazes were concentrated in northern New Mexico, where two major fires merged and numerous villages were threatened by advancing flames as residents heeded calls to leave.
Maggie Mulligan said Friday her dogs could sense the panic while she and her husband packed them up, agonized over having to leave horses behind and fled a fast-moving wildfire barreling toward their home.
“We don’t know what’s next,” she said. “We don’t know if we can go back to the horses.”
Mulligan and her husband, Bill Gombas, 67, were among the anxious residents who hurriedly evacuated their homes Friday ahead of ominous wildfires fueled by tinder-dry conditions and ferocious winds.
The merged fires burned some structures but no figures were available, said fire information officer Mike Johnson. “They were able to save some structures and we know we lost other structures that we weren’t able to defend.”
Wind-blown clouds of dust and plumes of smoke obscured the skies near the fires, said Jesus Romero, assistant county manager for San Miguel County. “All the ugliness that spring in New Mexico brings — that’s what they’re dealing in.”
An estimated 500 homes in San Miguel were in rural areas of Mora and San Miguel counties covered by evacuation orders or warning notices, Romero said.
Elsewhere in the region, the fire danger in the Denver area on Friday was the highest it had been in over a decade, according to the National Weather Service, because of unseasonable temperatures in the 80s combined with strong winds and very dry conditions.