New Mexico Wildfire Declared as a Disaster, Firefighters Maximized Efforts

Extra Mexico firefighters have stemmed the spread of the country's biggest wildfire, as Joe Biden designated the situation a catastrophe, sending new resources to isolated areas of the state that have been destroyed by fire since early April.

Spreading Blaze

The fire, which has spread across 258 square miles (669 square kilometers) of high alpine forest and grasslands at the southern point of the Rocky Mountains, is now being fought by about 1,300 firefighters and other professionals.

Firefighters take advantage of relatively quiet and cold weather to keep the fire from approaching Las Vegas, New Mexico, and other settlements spread along the fire's shifting fronts. Ground teams removed wood and brush to starve the fire along critical fronts while planes and helicopters dropped slurries of red fire retardant from the sky.

Federal Disaster

On Wednesday evening, Teresa Leger Fernandez, a New Mexico congressman, declared a federal disaster.

"It will assist us in rebuilding and the expenditures and hardships that people are currently experiencing," the lawmaker stated. "We're relieved that everything occurred so soon."

According to scientists and fire specialists, wildfires have become a year-round menace in the drought-stricken West, moving quicker and blazing hotter than ever before due to climate change. Due to rising temperatures, drought conditions have worsened and dehydrating plants that grew during last summer's strong monsoon season in the southwest. While the region's driest months are generally late spring and early summer, the climate crisis has accelerated the cycle, resulting in larger fires and a longer fire season.

"Climate change is turning up the dial on a condition that would typically be negative for humans," says Gregg Garfin, a scientist at the University of Arizona.

On the fringes of Las Vegas, population 13,000, bulldozers have been scraping fire lines while personnel has performed controlled burning to remove neighboring vegetation to prevent it from igniting. In anticipation of strong winds forecast over the weekend, aircraft sprayed extra fire retardant along a ridge just west of Las Vegas as a second line of defense. Only 20% of the perimeter of the fire had been controlled.

Strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph are predicted to resume on Saturday afternoon, combined with above-normal temperatures and "abysmally low" humidity, posing an exceptional fire risk, according to Todd Shoemake, an Albuquerque National Weather Service meteorologist.

"It's looking like Sunday and Monday will be considerably worse."

Affected

An estimated 15,500 residences in outlying communities and the valleys of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which surround Las Vegas, have been ordered to evacuate. The number of properties burned by the fire is estimated to be about 170, but this number might rise because officials have not been able to survey all of the burn zones.

Biden's disaster proclamation provides funding for recovery work in three counties in northern New Mexico, where flames are burning, and regions in southern New Mexico where wind-driven blazes killed two people and damaged over 200 houses in mid-April.

According to a White House statement, the help includes grants for temporary housing and house repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other relief programs for individuals and companies.

Los Alamos National Laboratory officials kept a close eye on another blaze within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of the US nuclear research complex's buildings.

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