There's been an unusually early
start to fire season this year,
with blazes already burning for
weeks in the southwest, mainly
in Arizona and New Mexico.
The nation's largest wildfire
continues to rage in New Mexico
near Santa fe.
It has burned nearly 260,000
acres and there no end in sight.
On the ground, Stephanie sy
reports on the toll the massive
blaze is taking on both the land
and its people.
Stephanie: For more than a
month, the winds have blown and
the flames have lit up the
sangre de Cristo mountains in
northeastern New Mexico,
consuming an area larger than
New York City.
Those winds, gusting more than
50 miles per hour, threatened
this week to push the fire to
communities closer to the city
of taos, putting more
communities on notice to
evacuate.
>> If they evacuated us from
here, we don't know where we're
going to go.
Stephanie: Yesterday in the
nearby village of eagles nest,
residents at this econolodge --
who'd already fled their homes
days or even weeks before in
mora -- were trying to decide
what to do next.
>> There is a rumor going around
the house has burned.
And so some people have said
that they saw it burning.
And so it very well could be
gone at this point.
>> We don't know what to do.
They're evacuating us from here
and we don't know if we're going
to go to Albuquerque, Colorado,
or wherever the hell we're going
to go.
>> They told us three days here,
but, that fire over there, it's
what's controlling everything.
Stephanie: The blaze now rapidly
approaching the largest wildfire
in New Mexico's recorded history
has grown at a terrifying clip.
After more than a month -- and
with more than 1800 firefighting
personnel from states across the
country -- the wildfire remains
less than 30% contained.
>> In my 25 years of experience,
I've never seen a fire grow like
this in early may, late April,
especially in New Mexico.
Stephanie: Ryan Berlin is a fire
spokesman for the incident
management team.
A confluence of climate change,
weather, and human decisions
appear to have caused the blaze.
>> The fire loves the wind and
loves the topography.
And we've had a lot of low
relative humidity here, too.
So when this all lines up it's
just allowing for the rapid
fire growth.
Stephanie: In addition to that
low humidity, higher than
average temperatures, and a
series of days of gusting winds
have blown the embers and
sparked new fires.
Meanwhile, those winds have also
kept firefighting aircraft
grounded for days.
Closer to the southern end of
the massive wildfire, another
evacuation center been set up at
a middle school in the city of
Las Vegas, population, 13,000.
63-year-old Andrew vigil has
been volunteering here, helping
evacuees like this 8th
generation new Mexican carry
food for his grandkids to the
car.
He's doing so with a sprained
foot and a heavy heart.
A few weeks ago, the calf canyon
fire blew a column of smoke
within sight of his home, the
home he'd built with his own
hands and lived in for eight
years.
>> I told my wife. You better
get in your car.
Because I hear the wind, but I
hear something like a torch
behind it.
So I jumped in my pt cruiser,
got my dog and we were out of
there.
We made it.
Thank god we're alive.
Stephanie: But the house didn't
make it.
Nor did his new truck, nor the
winnebago he'd used as his "Man
cave".
Nor did almost anything else
Andrew vigil possessed.
>> It's not fair.
We were so happy there, me and
my wife.
Stephanie: Speaking to evacuees,
an undercurrent of anger runs as
word spreads that the wildfire
was at least in part caused by a
prescribed burn.
That's the practice of using
controlled burns to thin out the
forest and reduce wildfire fuel.
The U.S. Forest service lit a
prescribed burn in early April.
That fire merged with another
wildfire, becoming the
conflagration now threatening a
way of life for new Mexicans.
>> Somebody just made a bad
decision.
I think somebody's got to pay
for this.
Stephanie: In a statement to the
newshour, the forest service
defended the use of scribed
burns but said in unpredictable
change of winds --
an investigation is underway.
>> Around here, everybody knows
that you don't light a match in
March or April.
Those are the windiest months of
the year every year.
Stephanie: Michael Montoya is a
Las Vegas city council member.
Like many locals, his family
hails from the early Spanish and
Mexican settlers who lived in
the mountains here since well
before the founding of America.
His own family ranch is within a
mile of the eastern flank of the
fire.
>> Around here in the northern
part of the state is, you know,
we maintain the land and we
maintain it and we leave it
better than where we found it.
So, you know, that's really hard
for a lot of us, people that are
losing their properties.
Stephanie: And for many, those
properties were nearly all they
had in this poor region of a
poor state.
Donations have poured in to the
evacuation center in Las Vegas
where Janna Lopez, an evacuee
herself, has been coordinating
free meal service with the world
central kitchen.
>> This community has been
through so much sorrow, so much
devastation.
A lot of our people can't afford
health insurance.
It's pay your medical bills or
pay to keep the lights on, so
they don't have insurance.
Including myself, I didn't have
home insurance.
So it's just amazing the way
that the services have come
together.
Stephanie: Food is plentiful,
shelter is available, and a
helping hand even from those who
themselves have lost everything
is never far away.
The hardship is far from over.
While the winds are expected to
die down this weekend, fire
officials say they may not be
able to fully contain the blaze
until July.
For the "Pbs newshour," I'm
Stephanie sy in Las Vegas, new