Firefighters battle massive wildfire

Thousands of residents of a historic town in New Mexico were told to prepare for evacuation on Sunday as fierce winds drove the largest active US wildfire through drought-parched forests. People in the west of Las Vegas, New Mexico packed bags and kept family members close after the fire burned within 8km of their homes near interstate highway 25, according to local officials and fire authorities. Crews bulldozed firebreaks to the west and north of the city of 14,000 to protect ranches, and rural houses in the village of Montezuma, fire officials. The Calf Canyon fire has so far burned 97,000 hectares, an area nearly the size of Albuquerque, and is the largest of a dozen. Burning since April 6 around 48 km east of Santa Fe, the fire has destroyed more than 300 properties and forced the evacuation of dozens of villages and settlements in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.