More residents warned they may need to flee fire

LAS VEGAS, N.M. » Firefighters in New Mexico’s Rocky Mountain foothills prepared Monday to excavate new firebreaks and clear brush to form more defensive lines aimed at preventing a massive wildfire from destroying more homes and tinder-dry pine forests.

The fire that is largest in the U.S. has burned about 300 homes and jumped a highway late Sunday, taking hold in rugged areas difficult for firefighters to reach, and prompting a warning for more residents of rural villages to be prepared to flee quickly.

Another New Mexico wildfire in the mountains surrounding one of the federal government’s key facilities for nuclear research prompted Los Alamos National Laboratory and community officials to prepare for possible evacuations. Officials stressed there was no emergency, but the fire was within about 3 miles of the lab and was growing.

“If you don’t have to be at work, it’s time to prepare to telework,” lab director Thom Mason told employees in a video. “Conditions can change quickly; it has been very dry, very windy, and we have to be respectful of that risk and ready for what comes next.”

There was no letup Monday to the gusty winds that complicated firefighting efforts over previous days. The wind has fanned the New Mexico fires for weeks, with only brief interruptions, and the most recent wave of consecutive days of extremely dangerous wildfire conditions is unprecedented, weather forecasters said.

Nearly 1,700 firefighters were battling the biggest blaze burning northeast of Santa Fe, N.M. It has charred more than 296 square miles, an area nearly the size of New York City. After fighting it for nearly a month, firefighters had contained nearly half of the blaze by Monday, a feat that operations section chief Todd Abel said was significant given the challenges crews have faced.

The region’s largest population center, Las Vegas, N.M., home to 13,000 people, was declared largely safe from being burned after firefighters mostly stopped the fire on that front. But thousands of people living in smaller, outlying communities were still under evacuation orders.

Wind a problem

The northern and southern flanks of the wildfire have proved trickier to contain, as wind gusts over the weekend topped 50 mph. Officials Monday morning had not yet determined if it would be safe enough to launch aircraft to help with the firefighting effort.

The aircraft are used to drop water directly on flames or lay retardant ahead of the blaze’s expected direction so that bulldozers and ground crews can dig firebreaks in places where there are no roads that function as firebreaks.

The National Interagency Fire Center has said more than 20,000 New Mexico structures were threatened by the fire.