Smoke darkened the sky, and 100-foot flames engulfed the mountain village of Ruidoso, home to about 7,000 residents who fled their homes under evacuation orders with little time to rescue belongings.
ByFast-moving wildfires bore down on the mountain village of Ruidoso in southern New Mexico, prompting residents to evacuate their homes with little time to rescue belongings.Thousands of residents fled their homes as a wildfire swept into the mountain village of Ruidoso in southern New Mexico on Tuesday. The fire destroyed or damaged more than 500 structures, including an unknown number of homes.
However, she said the magnitude of the fires is beyond local control and requires immediate state intervention to protect public health, safety, and welfare. "The fire is out of control, but I've heard of no injuries or fatalities," Ruidoso City Councilor Greg Cory said during a brief telephone interview from Clovis, New Mexico, where he and his wife and grandson arrived after driving about three hours Monday evening from Ruidoso.
They headed out of Ruidoso, but heavy traffic turned what's normally a 15-minute drive into a harrowing two-hour ordeal. The couple started watching their cell phones and turned on the radio for updates. There was no "get ready," nor "get set" - it was just "go," Ernie Escajeda said. They grabbed legal documents and other belongings and headed out.
Public Service Company of New Mexico shut off power to part of the village due to the fire, which was estimated to be about 22 square miles with no containment, forestry, and village officials said Tuesday morning. "The Walmart parking lot is packed with people in RVs," Enrique Moreno, director of Roswell Community Disaster Relief, said. "Every single hotel in Roswell is filled to capacity right now. We go to the gas stations and we see just a bunch of people hanging around their cars."
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