The Associated Press
QUEEN, N.M. — Authorities have asked residents in three separate areas of New Mexico to leave their homes, which were threatened by a series of wildfires that broke out around the state, fanned by wind and dry conditions.
About 50 residents of the southeastern New Mexico community of Queen were urged to evacuate after a wildfire started near the village about midnight Monday, destroying one house and damaging three others. Fire officials say multiple structures remain threatened.
The blaze forced the closure of state highway 137 at Dark Canyon.
An estimated 1,500 acres of pinon and junipers on forest and private land have burned.
State Forestry Division spokesman Dan Ware said smoke from the blaze was impacting nearby Carlsbad and other communities.
Residents of the Sacramento Mountain village of Mayhill were asked to leave Monday because of a fire burning two miles west of the village, and Ware said the evacuation remained in effect Tuesday.
The blaze has grown to about 2,000 acres and burned three structures, but Ware did not know whether they were houses or other buildings. A shelter for evacuees was opened at the high school in nearby Cloudcroft.
U.S. 82, which was closed in the area Monday, has been reopened.
Officials also urged residents on Sunday to leave about 35 homes in Gila Hot Springs near the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico. The blaze, which broke out April 28, has burned more than 73 square miles and forced the closure of the Gila Cliff Dwellings Visitors Center, several campgrounds and a state highway.
Fire officials planned drops of water from helicopters on the rugged area Tuesday “until the winds pick up and the helicopters aren’t able to fly anymore,” said a fire information officer, Brian Martinez.
Two grass fires broke out Monday in southeastern New Mexico, and officials briefly evacuated a Baptist church and school on the west side of Roswell as a result of one of the fires. It wasn’t immediately known what started that fire or how many acres it had burned.
The second fire, farther southeast near the small community of Maljamar, burned 1,000 acres as winds drove it northward.
Another grass fire that broke out Monday in Torrance County east of Albuquerque burned 710 acres before it was under control, and a lightning-sparked fire spotted Friday 15 miles northwest of Hope in southern New Mexico had grown to 28 square miles by Tuesday and was 70 percent contained.