By PAUL DAVENPORT Associated Press April 30, 2022, 8:47 p.m. • 4 minutes reading Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email this article SANTA FE, NM – More than 1,000 firefighters backed by bulldozers and aircraft battled the largest active fire in the United States on Saturday as strong winds pushed it into some confines and closer to a small town in northern New Mexico. Preliminary overnight mapping images showed the fire, which burned at least 166 homes, increased in size from 103 square miles (266 square kilometers) on Friday to 152 square miles (393 square kilometers) by Saturday morning, Saturday morning said. . Ash as it traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) through the air fell into Las Vegas, a population of about 13,000, and firefighters were trying to prevent the fire from approaching, said Mike Johnson, a spokesman for the fire management team. The calmer winds on Saturday helped quell the blaze as gusts accelerated the blaze to a point on Friday where “we were watching the blaze for about a mile every hour,” said Jason Coyle, a firefighter. The winds were blowing up to 65 mph (105 km / h) on Friday before receding as night approached. By Saturday, aircraft rejecting fire retardants and water could continue flying to help ground crews and bulldozers. The rapid spread of the fire on Friday forced the crews to change positions repeatedly due to the threatening conditions, but they managed to re-engage immediately without being forced to retreat, Coil said. No injuries were reported. “One nod to everyone out there making good decisions on the go with limited information in a chaotic environment with immediate personal threat,” Coil said. “They did a great job.” The winds sent the flames for the first time, advancing frantically on April 22 throughout the northern landscape of New Mexico. Since then, crews have been working to reduce damage to structures by installing sprinklers, pumps and pipes and clearing vegetation around the buildings, officials said. With this project, and five times as many firefighters now working on the fire, they were in a much better position than a week earlier and were well on their way to making “tremendous progress,” Carl Schwope, its commander, said Friday. case management team. The fire on Saturday was reduced to about a third of its wider perimeter, a little less than Thursday. The fire started on April 6, when a planned burn set by firefighters to clean small trees and brushes that could power the fires was declared out of control. This fire then merged with another fire a week ago. With the recent increase in fires, estimates of people forced to evacuate mostly rural areas plus a subdivision near Las Vegas have doubled from 1,500 to 2,000 between 3,000 and 4,000, said Jesus Romero, assistant director for San Miguel County. Officials say the fire has destroyed 277 structures, including at least 166 homes. No updated damage estimates were available Saturday, Romero said. Fires continued to burn Saturday in other parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Fires burn unusually hot and fast for this time of year, especially in the southwest, where experts said some wood in the area is drier than wood that has been kiln-dried. Fires have been a threat throughout the year in the West, given changing conditions that include earlier snowmelt and rain coming later in the fall, the scientist said. The problems have been exacerbated by decades of fire suppression and mismanagement along with more than 20 years of drought-related studies that have been linked to man-made climate change. In northern Arizona, firefighters approached the complete containment of a 77-square-kilometer fire that destroyed at least 30 homes near Flagstaff and forced hundreds to evacuate. A top-level national fire management team assigned firefighting oversight to local firefighters on Friday. National Forests across Arizona have announced they will impose firefighting restrictions starting next Thursday that will reduce wildfires and reduce smoking inside vehicles, other indoor and outdoor areas. “Given the current drought conditions and the ‘very high’ level of fire risk, it is very dangerous for these activities,” said Taiga Rohrer, fire management officer for Tonto National Park. ——— Davenport reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press author Felicia Foneca in Flagstaff and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.
