‘Firefighters Out There in the Snow’: Wildfires Rage Early in Parched West

Firefighters in New Mexico, Arizona and California are battling springtime blazes that have been fueled by a severe drought and boosted by climate change.

RUIDOSO, N.M. — New Mexico’s first major wildfire of the year ignited this week near a campground where visitors can hike to view hundreds of prehistoric petroglyphs. After scorching nearly 6,000 acres in a matter of days, the blaze remains only 13 percent contained. In the Hualapai Mountains in Arizona, officials ordered the evacuation this week of 200 homes as screeching winds propelled flames through forests of brittle-dry pines. And in California, a fire threatened a Los Angeles County sheriff’s facility storing weapons and ammunition, in a region where the winter snowpack has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its usual size. “Another fire, so early in the spring, spreading so fast — it’s hard to fathom,” said Pamela Witte, who nervously watched this week as smoke filled the skies near her home in the mountain town of Ruidoso, N.M.