IN THE WORLD TODAY

Funds to be sent to help with widfires

PRESIDENT Joe Biden has approved a disaster declaration that brings new financial resources to stretches of New Mexico devastated by fire since early April. It comes as firefighters slowed the advance of the largest wildfire in the US as heavy winds relented.

State politician Teresa Leger Fernandez announced the presidential disaster declaration during an evening briefing by the US Forest Service on efforts to contain the sprawling wildfire in north-eastern New Mexico.

It has fanned out across 258 square miles of high alpine forest and grasslands at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains.

“It will help us do that rebuilding and it will help us with the expenses and the hardship that people are facing right now,” Fernandez said. We’re glad it happened this quickly.”

Fire chiefs are seizing on an interlude of relatively calm and cool weather to prevent the fire from pushing any closer to Las Vegas and other villages scattered along the fire’s shifting fronts.

Planes and helicopters dropped slurries of red fire retardant from the sky as ground crews cleared timber and brush to starve the fire along crucial fronts.

Bulldozers for days scraped fire lines on the outskirts of Las Vegas, which has a population of 13,000, while crews have conducted controlled burning to clear adjacent vegetation to prevent it from igniting. Aircraft dropped more fire retardant as a second line of defence along a ridge just west of Las Vegas in preparation for intense winds expected.

Strong winds with gusts up to 45mph are expected to return tomorrow along with abovenormal temperatures and “abysmally low” humidity that make for extreme fire danger.