Large fires are raging in New Mexico, and the worst may be coming

Fanned by relentless winds and fueled by abnormally warm and dry weather, a historically large siege of fires is raging in New Mexico.

Yet the state’s fire season still has to peak — and some of the most extreme fire conditions may be coming.

The fires prompted President Biden to declare a major disaster for parts of the state Wednesday so that federal assistance can reach affected residents. The disaster zone includes Mora and San Miguel counties — about 60 miles east of Santa Fe — where the Calf Canyon fire erupted in April. The blaze has since grown to 165,276 acres, New Mexico’s second-largest fire on record.

The Calf Canyon fire is also the largest fire so far this year in the United States. Only 20 percent contained, it has burned hundreds of structures and displaced thousands of people.

Residents forced from their homes, many uninsured or underinsured, do not know what they will come back to.

The Calf Canyon fire is among six large, active blazes in New Mexico, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 243,000 acres have burned statewide so far this year, the second most in the past decade, according to the Southwest Coordination Center, while many weeks of fire season lie ahead.

Erupting much earlier than normal, New Mexico’s blazes have spread swiftly over land parched by extreme drought and seared by higher than normal temperatures.

Climate science research links rising temperatures and intensifying droughts to longer, more severe fire seasons, and this year’s conditions may portend a fiery future for not only New Mexico but much of the Southwest. Hot, arid conditions dry out vegetation quickly, making the land surface more combustible.

Weather satellites have shown enormous smoke plumes emanating from the blazes, which have caused air quality levels to tank downwind.

As of Tuesday, the size of the Calf Canyon blaze had leaped ahead of the Las Conchas Fire, previously New Mexico’s second-largest fire, which burned 156,593 acres in the Santa Fe National Forest in 2011.

The Whitewater-Baldy Fire, which burned 297,845 acres in southern New Mexico between May and July of 2012, still ranks as the state’s largest.

But officials fear that the Calf Canyon blaze and others could grow considerably. While “tame” weather is predicted by the National Weather Service through Friday, the forecast calls for a return of dangerous conditions for the spread of fires over the weekend and into early next week.

Andy Lyon, public information officer with the Southwest Incident Management Team, said 15,000 residences are projected to be threatened over the next 72 hours all the way around the perimeter of the fire in Mora and San Miguel counties

The cause of the Calf Canyon Fire is still being investigated. It merged with the Hermit’s Peak Fire just to its east on April 23.