雪松ATTANASIO和苏珊BRYAN Associa蒙托亚ted Press
LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Wind-whipped flames raced across more of New Mexico’s pine-covered mountainsides on Monday, closing in on a town of 13,000 people where some residents hurried to pack their cars with belongings, others hustled to clear brush from around their homes, and police were called in to help evacuate the state’s psychiatric hospital.
188金博网网址多少消防船员正在争夺美国的大火，这是美国最大的燃烧，越来越多地穿越该州干旱的景观。这场大火已经烧毁了超过188平方英里（487平方公里），从新墨西哥州东北部的小城市拉斯维加斯（Las Vegas）可以看到火焰。
Fire officials said they expect the blaze to keep growing, putting it on track to be one of the largest and most destructive in the state’s recorded history.
这座城市历史悠久的广场上方的天空在几部电影和电视连续剧中以背景而闻名，是一种黄色和灰色的味道，浓烟浓烈阳光。当阿什（Ash）周围摔倒时，克里斯·卡斯蒂略（Chris Castillo）和他的堂兄弟（Chris Castillo）正在砍伐树木，并将木材从家庭成员的家中移开。
“We’re all family here. We’re trying to make a fire line,” he said
Other family members were driving around with cattle trailers, waiting to help anyone who calls to move livestock.
Wildfires have become a year-round threat in the drought-stricken West and they are moving faster and burning hotter than ever due to climate change, scientists and fire experts say. In the last five years, California for example has experienced the eight largest wildfires in state history, while Colorado saw a destructive blaze tear through suburban neighborhoods last December.
Fire officials warned Monday that the fire in northern New Mexico would keep spreading at dangerous speeds and in different directions due to shifting winds, low humidity and high temperatures. They said the majority of the coming days feature more high winds that would make suppression efforts difficult.
“This is a long-term event, and we don’t anticipate having ‘control’ of this fire any time soon,” fire officials said in an update Monday.
The fire — fanned by an extended period of hot, dry and windy conditions — ballooned in size Sunday, prompting authorities to issue new evacuation orders for the small town of Mora and other villages.
居民s in some outlying neighborhoods of the town of Las Vegas were told to be ready to leave their homes as the smoke choked the economic hub for the farming and ranching families who have lived for generations in the rural region. It’s also home to New Mexico Highlands University and is one of the most populated stops along Interstate 25 before the Colorado state line.
Operations Section Chief Todd Abel said Monday that crews were busy using bulldozers to build fire lines to keep the flames from pushing into neighborhoods.
Fire information officer Mike De Fries said crews got a bit of a break Monday afternoon as the wind diminished and helicopters were able to make water drops in key locations. Still, flames running along the ridges above town could be seen from the discount store, an empty baseball field and other vantage points.
The county jail, the state’s psychiatric hospital and more than 200 students from the United World College have evacuated and what businesses remained open were having a hard time finding workers as more people were forced from their homes.
“我们正在努力用骨架船员来容纳和养活人们。数百人失去了家园。这是一次非凡的悲剧。他说，他的大多数员工都被撤离了他们的家，他取消了来宾预订，以容纳消防员和急救人员。
行为健康研究所的197名患者被送往该州的其他设施，其中一些人被安全部队运输，其他则由警察陪同。
State environmental authorities and officials in Las Vegas also were asking people to conserve water to ensure fire crews have enough to fight the blaze.
Across New Mexico, officials and groups were collecting food, water and other supplies for the thousands of people displaced by the fires. Offers of prayers and hope flooded social media as residents posted photos of the flames torching the tops of towering ponderosa pines near their homes. Some of those living close to the fires described the week that the fire has raged nearby as gut wrenching.
On the northern flank of the fire, evacuees streamed uphill Monday out of the Mora River valley over passes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. State Rep. Roger Montoya, from the mountain hamlet of Chacon, said neighbors were putting what they couldn’t carry with them into metal containers and leaving them in irrigating fields, hoping the moisture would offer some protection.
Officials have said the northeastern New Mexico fire has damaged or destroyed 172 homes and at least 116 structures.
It merged last week with another blaze that was sparked in early April when a prescribed fire escaped containment after being set by land managers to clear brush and small trees in hopes of reducing the fire danger. The cause of the other fire is still under investigation.
Jesus Romero, the deputy manager of San Miguel County, on Monday was helping family monitor their home amid smoky ash-laden air. He cut down trees around his garage as a fire-prevention measure and talked with other residents who were undecided about whether to leave. He called the situation serious.
Another New Mexico wildfire burning in the mountains near Los Alamos National Laboratory also prompted more evacuations over the weekend and other communities were told to get ready to evacuate if conditions worsen. It has reached the burn scars of wildfires that blackened the region a decade ago when New Mexico had one of its worst and most destructive seasons.
A wildfire in 2000 forced the closure of the laboratory and left about 400 people homeless. The community was threatened again in 2011 when another blaze caused by a downed power line blackened more of the surrounding forest.
In the southern New Mexico community of Ruidoso, two people were killed in a wildfire that destroyed more than 200 homes in April. That mountain community saw similar destruction from a 2012 fire.
And new wildfires were reported over the weekend — three in Texas, two in New Mexico and one each in Oklahoma and Tennessee, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 3,100 wildland firefighters and support personnel are fighting fires across the country, with about one-third of them trying to prevent the big blaze in New Mexico from spreading.
More than 4,400 square miles (11,400 square kilometers) have burned across the U.S. so far this year.
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美联社writers Terry Tang and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this report. Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
