Preliminary overnight mapping images showed the fire, which burned at least 166 homes, increased in size from 103 square miles on Friday to 152 square miles by early Saturday, officials said. Seven miles of airborne ash fell in 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 department. The calmer winds on Saturday helped quell the blaze as gusts accelerated the blaze to a point where on Friday “we were watching the fire for about a mile every hour,” said Jason Coyle, a firefighter. Smoke from a fire in the Calf Canyon can be seen from the village of Mora, New Mexico on April 29. Photo: Andrew Hay / Reuters The winds rushed to 65 mph 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 get involved again 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 construction damage by installing sprinklers, pumps and pipes and clearing vegetation around the buildings, officials said. With this project and five times as many firefighters fighting the fire, they were in a much better position than a week earlier and were well on their way to making “tremendous progress,” said Carl Schwope, commander of the management team, on Friday. incidents. 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 dried in the kiln. Fires have been threatening year-round in the west due to changing conditions that include earlier snowmelt and rain coming later in the fall, scientists say. 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 30-square-mile 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, Tonto National Forest Fire Officer.
