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Two
wildfires merged northwest of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and raced
through 15 miles of forest driven by winds over 75 mph (121 kph),
destroying more than 200 buildings, state authorities said.
To the northeast, a fire about 35 miles west of Taos doubled in
size to become the largest burning in the United States, forcing
the evacuation of a scout ranch and threatening several
villages.
The wildfires are the most severe of nearly two dozen in the
U.S. Southwest and raised concerns the region was in for a
brutal fire year as a decades-long drought combined with
abundant dry vegetation.
"We have a longer, more dangerous and more dramatic fire season
ahead of us," New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham told
reporters, adding that the state had 20 active fires following
Friday's "unprecedented" wind storm.
The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires near Las Vegas combined
to burn 42,341 acres, an area larger than Florida's Disney
World. Evacuations expanded to half a dozen more communities
including the village of Mora, the governor said.
Climate change has lowered winter snowpacks and allowed larger
and more extreme fires to start earlier in the year, according
to scientists.
West of Taos, the Cooks Peak fire nearly doubled in size to
48,672 acres, forcing the evacuation of the Philmont Scout Ranch
and threatening the village of Cimarron.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico;Editing by Andrea
Ricci and Leslie Adler)
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