Growing wildfires a very chaotic situation, says crew tackling them

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona (AP) —
Maggie Mulligan said her dogs could sense the panic as she and her husband packed them up and fled a fast-moving wildfire barrelling toward their home in northeast New Mexico as they agonised over having to leave their horses behind.

"We don't know what's next," she said. “We don't know if we can go back to the horses.”

Mulligan and her husband, Bill Gombas, 67, were among the anxious residents who hurriedly packed up and evacuated their homes Friday ahead of ominous western wildfires fuelled by tinder-dry conditions and ferocious winds.

More than 1,600 firefighters were battling nine different large fires in Arizona and New Mexico that have destroyed dozens of homes and burned more than 258 square kilometres in the blazes.

Fires also were burning in Colorado, where new evacuations were ordered Friday west of Colorado Springs. But there were no immediate reports of structures lost.

With no air support or crews working directly on the fire lines, there was explosive growth in the size and number of new small fires in the U.S. Southwest on Friday.

“It's a very chaotic situation out there,” Stewart Turner, a fire behaviour analyst, said during a briefing Friday night on the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico.

“We've had extreme fire behaviour all day.”

Firefighters working to keep more homes from burning on the edge of a mountain town in northern Arizona were helped by snow, scattered showers and cooler temperatures early Friday.

But the favourable weather did not last.

While sustained winds were forecast to ease a bit, more gusts were expected to batter parts of Arizona and all of New Mexico through the weekend.

Follow The Gleaner on Twitter and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com