A massive wildfire that has been burning for weeks is now the largest in New Mexico history. According to Inciweb, the Hermits Peak Fire – which merged with the Calf Canyon Fire earlier this month – has burned more than 465 square miles, an area nearly the size of Los Angeles. This surpasses the 464 square miles burned by the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire in 2012, previously the largest in state history.
The blaze is mostly burning in forested areas of northern New Mexico, but several towns have been placed under evacuation orders as the fire spread, and more than 450 structures have been destroyed.
The Hermits Peak Fire was sparked on the afternoon of April 6 and is 27% contained as of Monday morning. It was sparked by spot fires from a prescribed burn. The fire has been fueled by windy conditions and a worsening drought that has gripped much of the West this year.
The so-called Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire has torched 298,060 acres (121,000 hectares), surpassing the previous largest fire, the Whitewater Baldy blaze in 2012. It was 27% contained, the Santa Fe National Forest reported.
The 45-mile-long (72-km long) conflagration began on April 6 when the U.S. Forest Service failed to contain a so-called controlled burn designed to prevent larger wildfires. That blaze then merged with another, the cause of which is under investigation. The fire has destroyed watersheds and forests used for centuries by Indo-Hispano farming villages for building material, firewood, and irrigation.
Smoke clogged the plaza of Santa Fe as the fire burned within 20 miles (32 km) of the city of 84,000, a major tourist destination, triggering evacuations in other mountain communities on Sunday. Flames have raced through forests packed with fuel after a century of fire suppression and logging bans since the 1990s, according to biologists.
