Ruidoso Residents Flee Growing Wildfire Threat

Residents in the New Mexico village of Ruidoso were told to immediately flee because of a wildfire that was discovered west of town and has grown to more than 1,300 acres, officials said.

The South Fork Fire was discovered on the Mescalero Reservation west of the village of more than 7,000, the New Mexico Forestry Division said.

It had grown to 1,385 acres, according to the village’s incident information website, and multiple evacuation orders have been issued. That site said the fire was "an active fire and moving fast."

No deaths appear to have been reported. The number of structures lost was listed as unknown on government incident websites, but multiple structures were threatened.

Hot ash from the fire was falling in Alto, a community north of Ruidoso, Ruidoso's government said. Part of U.S. Highway 70 near the reservation was closed, it said.

The reservation said on its website that the Mescalero conservation was going door to door to tell people in affected areas to leave immediately and that fire and vehicle restrictions and closures were in effect.

An evacuation center was open at the gym of Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell in Roswell, around 70 miles east of Ruidoso, and the nearby city of Alamogordo said it would send firefighters to help.

Ruidoso, Alto and the reservation are in the Sierra Blanca mountain range, around 130 miles southeast of Albuquerque.

The blaze broke out as much of the American Southwest, including parts of New Mexico, were under "red flag" warnings because of the risk of fires due to very dry air and winds.

In Calaveras County, California, east of Stockton, a wildfire that has burned around 1,900 acres also forced emergency evacuations.

Around 5,000 people were without power because of the fire.