Strong winds on Wednesday carried the Forest fire largest of USA to a ski resort and to the community of Taos in New Mexico1,000 years old.
As residents evacuated, flames ripped through dry forests and firefighters tried to protect homes from a blaze that has burned a 45-mile-long trail up into the mountains. Blood of Christ in just over a month.
Families in Taos Canyon and the Angel Fire ski area packed their belongings into cars and trailers after being told to be ready to go.
“There’s a chance, with the models we’re running, that those areas could catch fire,” he said. Todd Abelbattalion chief of the National Wildfire Coordination Groupat a press conference.
In immediate danger was the town of Chacón, where residents stayed to defend homes that have been in their families since the Spanish-Mexican land grants of the 1820s, when the area was not yet part of USA.
“There’s a lot of fire headed that way, so I highly recommend people evacuate,” Abel said.
Northern New Mexico is trapped in its worst drought in at least 500 years. Climate change has reduced snow cover and dried up high mountain forests and valleys, according to scientists.
The so-called fire Hermits Peak Calf Canyon it has destroyed forests and watersheds used by Indo-Hispanic farmers and herding peoples who have depended on them for centuries for logging, firewood and irrigation.
It now threatens the forests where the Picuris Pueblo and Taos Pueblo Native American tribes have hunted and gathered building materials for some 1,000 years.
The fire has burned hundreds of homes and more than 95,881 hectares of land, an area larger than the five boroughs of New York City. The fire is 33 percent contained.