Government Asks Mountain Villages to Evacuate as New Mexico Wildfire Pushes North

Government Asks Mountain Villages to Evacuate as New Mexico Wildfire Pushes North. 

New Mexico Wildfire: Strong winds carried the most active wildfire in the United States into centuries-old agricultural and ranching towns in northern New Mexico on Sunday, forcing two mountain villages to evacuate. continue reading

According to residents and fire officials, neighbors of Holman and Chacon received text messages at 2:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) advising them to “Go” as embers flew out of the forest into the Mora valley.

“The hazard is now up towards that region since it’s burnt through some lower valley locations,” said Gabriel Meléndez, a Mora local.

Around 12,000 people in two northern New Mexico counties have been ordered to escape the state’s second-largest wildfire. It started when a US Forest Service planned burn got out of hand.

According to forest biologist Joshua Sloan of New Mexico Highlands University, the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire moves through the overcrowded and congested forest with dead trees after a century of USFS policy to put fires out within hours and court injunctions on logging since the mid-1990s.

Climate change has severely reduced snowpacks, according to a tree-ring study in the adjacent Jemez Mountains. 

As a result, the area is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years.

On Sunday, a fire in that range, 60 miles west of Mora Valley, spread to 40,000 acres (16,817 hectares), blazing within 7 miles (11 kilometers) of Los Alamos’ nuclear weapons facility and 5 miles (8 kilometers) of Native American ruins in Bandelier National Monument.

The Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire has burned 176,273 acres (71,335), an area larger than New York City’s five boroughs.