This Las Vegas needs turn of fortune
New Mexico town in middle of wildfire hell
LAS VEGAS, N.M. — Windwhipped flames raced across more of New Mexico’s pine-covered mountainsides on Monday, closing in on a town of 13,000 people where residents hurried to pack their cars with belongings, others raced to clear brush from around their homes, and police were called in to help evacuate the state’s psychiatric hospital.
Firefighting crews were battling to keep the fire, the largest burning in the United States, from making another run across the state’s droughtparched landscape. The blaze in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near the small northeastern New Mexico city of Las Vegas already has charred more than 188 square miles.
Fire officials said they expect the blaze to keep growing, putting it on track to be one of the largest and most destructive in the state’s recorded history.
The sky above the city’s historic plaza, made famous as a backdrop in several movies and television series, was a sickly tinge of yellow and gray as thick smoke blotted out the sun. As ash fell around them, Chris Castillo and his cousins were cutting down trees and moving logs away from a family member’s home.
“We’re all family here. We’re trying to make a fire line,” he said.
Other family members were driving around with cattle trailers, waiting to help anyone who calls to move livestock.
Wildfires have become a yearround threat in the drought-stricken West and they are moving faster and burning hotter than ever due to climate change, scientists and fire experts say. In the last five years, Cal
ifornia for example has experienced the eight largest wildfires in state history, while Colorado saw a destructive blaze tear through suburban neighborhoods last December.
Fire officials warned Monday that the fire in northern New Mexico would keep spreading at dangerous speeds and in different directions due to shifting winds, low humidity and high temperatures. They said the majority of the coming days feature more high winds and that would continue to make suppression efforts difficult.
The fire has been fanned by an extended period of hot, dry and windy conditions and ballooned in size Sunday, prompting authorities to issue new evacuation orders for the small town of Mora and other villages.
Residents in some outlying neighborhoods of the town of Las Vegas were put on notice to be ready to leave their homes as the smoke choked the economic hub for the farming and ranching families who have lived for generations in the rural region. It’s also home to New Mexico Highlands University and is one of the most populated stops along Interstate 25 before the Colorado state line.
Operations Section Chief Todd Abel said Monday that crews were busy using bulldozers to build fire lines to keep the flames from pushing into neighborhoods.
The county jail, the state’s psychiatric hospital and about 200 students from the United World College have evacuated and what businesses remained open were having a hard time finding workers as more people evacuated.