Thousands of residents in southern New Mexico were ordered to evacuate their homes as the South Fork fire rapidly spread overnight, encircling the village of Ruidoso and scorching over 13,000 acres just one day after the fire sparked.
The South Fork fire ignited on Monday in the state’s Mescalero Apache Reservation, quickly prompting tribal officials to declare a state of emergency as the fire spread through both tribal land and protected U.S. Forest Service lands around the village of Ruidoso, nearly 150 miles southeast of Albuquerque.
The fire had burned just over 5,000 acres with 0% containment as of Tuesday night, according to the state forestry division, though dry conditions and wind gusts up to 25 mph in the area allowed the fire to rapidly spread.
By Tuesday morning, the fire had nearly tripled in size to just under 14,000 acres, Ruidoso officials said, taking over a patch of land roughly the size of Manhattan, which has been parched in an extreme drought, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Drought Monitor.
Meanwhile, another fire that also started on tribal land—the Salt Fire—is approaching Ruidoso from the south, with the two wildfires acting like a “pair of tongs” surrounding the village, New Mexico Forestry Division spokesperson George Ducker told CNN.
Roughly 5,000 residents in Ruidoso were ordered to evacuate, Ducker added, while the Mescalero Apache Tribe issued an executive order prohibiting outdoor activity and off-road travel.
The National Weather Service also issued a fire warning south of Ruidoso, with an air quality alert in its surrounding counties warning of “very unhealthy air quality levels” from wildfire smoke, and cautioning “sensitive groups” against outdoor physical activity.
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Over 341,000 acres. That’s how many acres New Mexico’s Calf Canyon and Hermit’s Peak Fire claimed over four months in 2022, making it the state’s largest wildfire on record. That fire, which started as a prescribed burn that spread uncontrollably and eventually merged with another wildfire, wreaked havoc on the state’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains and burned over 900 structures, prompting evacuations throughout the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
As the wildfire spreads in New Mexico, a heat wave has also overtaken the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, putting nearly 80 million people from Maine to Iowa under heat advisories and warnings. Temperatures in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Ohio River Valley are expected to hit the mid-to-upper 90s Tuesday, with a heat index—how hot it feels when considering humidity and other factors—upwards of 105 degrees in some areas before intensifying throughout the week. Forecasters warn residents to seek air-conditioned rooms and avoid strenuous outdoor activities during peak afternoon hours.