Wildfires scorch Southwest, driven by strong winds

Strong winds scheduled for Friday could have a devastating affect on the Arizona Wallow Fire currently burning through Arizona and New Mexico, authorities have admitted.

There is a big risk that the winds could undo a lot of the containment work fire crews have progressed on throughout the week.

Terry Stemmler, a spokesman for the Southwest Incident Management Team said, “Yes, it is a threat. Anything could happen.”

Thursday marked the beginning of a period in which fire crews will face four straight days of “red flag warnings.” A “red flag warning” indicates that weather conditions will include strong winds and low humidity; perfect conditions for fires to be sparked and to spread.

According to CNN, a spokesman for fire crews, Dale Thompson, said, “This whole part of the country is in extreme drought. Grass will take off like gasoline.

More than 582,000 acres have burned in New Mexico so far this year, and state forestry spokesman Dan Ware said much of that damage is the result of human-caused fires.

“It’s everyday activities — welding, grinding, driving, debris burning,” he said. “People know its dry, but I think people kind of have this built-in sense of invulnerability and they think ‘It’s not going to happen to me. I’m being careful.’”

“This is one of those years where the oh-it-can’t-happen-to-me mentality doesn’t cut it,” Ware added.

The costs are too high for people to be careless or disregard restrictions, said Neil Segotta, the mayor of Raton, N.M. He has watched for the past week as hundreds of firefighters have battled a wildfire burning in the mountains above his community.

The fire has burned more than 27,000 acres along the New Mexico-Colorado border, devastating the community’s watershed, destroying eight homes and six other structures and forcing the evacuation of several hundred people. Most residents have been allowed to return home with the exception of those near the eastern flank and some to the northwest of Raton.

Firefighters were focused Friday on keeping the flames from pushing farther into Colorado. In that state, more than 7,100 acres have burned since the fire started Sunday on the west side of Interstate 25.

Crews have built lines to keep the flames in check on the northern end. They worked Friday to bolster those lines and continued mop-up operations elsewhere on the fire’s perimeter.

Friday was another busy day for firefighting crews across the West. Fires were burning near Yakima, Wash., west of St. George, Utah, and in southern Colorado.