The 15,276-acre South Fork Fire, whose growth fire officials described as “rapid and extreme,” has been burning since Monday on Mescalero Tribal and U.S. Forest Service lands near the mountain resort village of Ruidoso.
As of Tuesday night, the fire was 0 percent contained, and the source was still under investigation, according to a state and federal interagency fire portal.
A second blaze, the 5,557-acre Salt Fire, was ripping through Mescalero Reservation areas due southwest of Ruidoso, per the portal.
The concurrent conflagrations prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency in the surrounding Lincoln County and Mescalero Apache Reservation.
The governor’s office characterized the blazes as “beyond local control,” stressing the need for state intervention, funding and resources.
State officials encouraged residents to keep track of pollution levels amidst so much smoke — encouraging use of the “5-3-1 Visibility Method,” which helps gauge air quality based on distance visible.
While a round of storms was poised to offer possible relief to the region on Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service’s Albuquerque branch warned on X that with such weather also comes risks.
The meteorologists cautioned that “burn scar flooding is possible,” as is the flow of dangerous debris left in the wildfire’s stead.
“If you have to shelter in place, get to the highest point inside your home,” the forecasters added. “Go up, not out.”
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, observed on X that these dual blazes had “caused yet another disaster in the Western U.S. wildland-urban interface.”
Last year, wildfires burned about 212,378 acres of land across New Mexico, according to a National Interagency Fire Center report. That tremendous total trailed only those of Alaska, at 314,276 acres, and California, at 332,722 acres burned.
In 2022, the destruction spanned a massive 859,906 acres — just under the area of Rhode Island — while 2021 was comparatively calmer, with 123,792 acres burned.
New Mexico, Swain stated on X, has endured “quite a rough few years in this regard.”
