Calf Canyon fire in New Mexico spreads as strong winds blow

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple

Strong winds continued into the day Sunday, helping spread the second-largest wildfire on record in New Mexico farther into small farming communities in the state’s mountain valleys, as crews expect many more days of severe conditions.

The Calf Canyon Fire kept moving south and east on Sunday and is expected to push that direction overnight as winds stay strong all night. It has also spread north, establishing on the far side of a highway that firefighters had hoped to use as a containment line.

Although no deaths have been reported, the fire has destroyed at least 276 structures and led to the evacuation of nearly 13,000 residences.

Here in a town of more than 13,000 people about 120 miles northeast of Albuquerque, residents banded together in the face of uncertainty.
On May 4, President Biden declared the Calf Canyon fire, now the state’s second-largest fire on record, a major disaster. (Video: John Farrell/The Washington Post)

At a former middle school now serving as a shelter, Janna Lopez dished out plates of pasta, brisket and pulled pork on Saturday evening.

“I was crying at home saying, ‘What can I do?’ ” Lopez said. “And that’s when it evolved — we can cook.”

So she and her family made a full New Mexican meal of pozole, enchiladas and red chile to take to one of the evacuation shelters. She then joined the not-for-profit World Central Kitchen’s efforts to provide food.

She still remembers the trees burning as she packed up papers and grabbed photos of her 8-year-old daughter off the walls in the two hours she had to gather her belongings.

“Just a lot of worry here — when can we go home, can we go home?” Lopez said.

By nightfall, orange flames outlined steep slopes, and pillars of light formed where trees were torched.

“The high winds have been the biggest factor against us,” Michael Montoya, a Las Vegas city council member, told The Washington Post on Saturday. “There’s no end in sight.”

Todd Abel, operations section chief with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team, said Sunday morning that aerial crews were working to contain the fire. But the strength of the winds had grounded many plans and aircraft, according to U.S. Forest Service officials.

Winds of 30 to 40 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph, were “incredible” and “precedent setting,” Abel said, adding that they are expected to continue through Monday.

The fire, now more than a month old, has already burned 176,273 acres and is 43 percent contained, said Mike De Fries, information officer with the Southwest Coordination Center, an interagency group that organizes wildfire response. In late April, it merged with the Hermit’s Peak Fire to the east, a prescribed burn that fire crews lost control of amid strong winds. The cause of the Calf Canyon Fire is under investigation.

A crew of 1,685 personnel and a large aircraft fleet — including four water scoopers and 12 helicopters — are working feverishly to combat the fierce blaze, which has a perimeter stretching roughly 300 miles.

“Right now, we are in this multiday wind event and we have our resources deployed to take on fire in areas where it’s being most aggressive at pushing on the actual perimeter of the fire or threatening communities,” De Fries told The Post on Sunday.

“The fire definitely is pushing to grow, and we’re just trying to protect the communities and limit the growth,” he added.

The winds have pushed the fire toward rural communities north of Las Vegas, De Fries said, with more evacuation alerts issued there Sunday afternoon. Las Vegas, the most densely populated area in the fire’s vicinity, has seen some evacuation orders lifted as containment efforts have reduced the threats to that city.