The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Bulldozers, aircraft used to fight fire
Over 1,000 firefighters backed by bulldozers and aircraft battled the largest active wildfire in the U.S. on Saturday after strong winds pushed it across some containment lines and closer to a small city in northern New Mexico.
Preliminary overnight mapping imagery indicated that the fire that has burned at least 166 homes grew in size from 103 square miles Friday to 152 square miles by early Saturday, officials said.
Ash carried 7 miles through the air fell on Las Vegas, population about 13,000, and firefighters were trying to prevent the blaze from getting closer, said Mike Johnson, a spokesman for the fire management team.
Calmer winds were aiding the firefighting effort after gusts accelerated the fire’s advance to a point on Friday when “we were watching the fire march about a mile every hour,” said Jayson Coil, a fire operations official.
Winds gusted up to 65 mph Friday before subsiding as nightfall approached. By Saturday, aircraft that dump fire retardant and water could resume flights to aid ground crews and bulldozers.
The fire’s rapid growth Friday had forced crews to repeatedly change positions because of threatening conditions but managed to immediately re-engage without being forced to retreat, Coil said. No injuries were reported.
“Kind of a nod to everybody out there that made good decisions on the fly with limited information in a chaotic environment with direct personal threat,” Coil said. “They did an excellent job.”
The winds first sent the flames advancing furiously on April 22 across the northern New Mexico landscape. Since then, crews have worked to limit structure damage by installing sprinklers, pumps and hoses and clearing vegetation around buildings, officials said.
With that work and five times as many firefighters now working the fire, they were in much better position than a week earlier and were on track to make “tremendous progress,” Carl Schwope, the incident management team’s commander said.