Governor declares emergency for fire-stricken areas near Ruidoso

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in Lincoln County and the Mescalero Apache Reservation on Tuesday and deployed additional National Guard to the area in response to the South Fork and Salt fires.

The Governor’s Office said at least one person has died in fire, but didn’t have any additional details.

Residents of Ruidoso remained under an evacuation order Tuesday, as wildfires continued to threaten property and buildings in the southern New Mexico town of 8,000.

The South Fork Fire had blackened nearly 15,300 acres and remained zero-percent contained, the New Mexico Forestry Division said late Tuesday.

“Approximately 1,400 structures in the area have been lost,” the agency said, adding that about 8,000 people have been evacuated from the area.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham at an afternoon news conference said there was no information readily available about what structures burned, because, “It’s too dangerous to be in the heart of the fire.”

About 800 firefighting personnel from 17 agencies, including 13 wildfire hotshot crews, were on the ground Tuesday, she said.

“These are very serious fires,” Lujan Grisham said. Officials had not published maps of the wildfires because of their dynamic movement, she said. “I rejected having a map that would give New Mexicans a sense that if you live, or have a family member, in another area that you’re safe.”

During the news conference, the governor received word that Ruidoso Downs had been placed under an evacuation order. The Village of Ruidoso reported Tuesday that evacuation orders remained in effect for Chatto Bluff, Apache Summit, Fantasy Lane, homes along U.S. 70 from N.M. 244 to the east reservation line, Bear Canyon and Snow Canyon.

State Forester Laura McCarthy said strong winds and a changing weather pattern have resulted in unpredictable fire conditions.

“This fire is dangerous and fast moving,” McCarthy said at the news conference. “The winds are strong. The fire behavior that we saw yesterday, and that is picking up now this afternoon, is extreme fire behavior.”

McCarthy also called the weather “dynamic,” with an incoming cold front entering the state that potentially could bring rain into the area by Thursday. “That’s a bit uncertain,” she said. “So it’s both bad news and good news.”

Winds lessened enough on Tuesday to allow firefighters to build fire lines and suppress spot fires from blown embers, McCarthy said. “Weather today has allowed aircraft and the ground resources like bulldozers and the hotshot crews to work together,” she said.

Management of the fire also will change Wednesday when a complex incident management team takes control at 6 a.m., replacing the Type 3 team that has fought the fire so far this week, McCarthy said.

A complex incident management team combines the Type 1 and Type 2 teams previously used to fight the most serious wildfires.

Lujan Grisham batted down suggestions circulating on social media that the fires were intentionally set. A six-member team of investigators led by the federal Bureau of Land Management will begin determining the cause when they are able to enter the fire-stricken areas, she said.

“I don’t want to minimize any information but it really is just speculation today,” she said.

Residents who fled the Ruidoso described a frightening trip on the only evacuation route as wildfire encroached on the mountain village.

Hundreds of evacuees took refuge Monday night in temporary shelters with little information about when they could return.

The Village of Ruidoso issued an evacuation notice on its Facebook page Monday, urging residents to “GO NOW.”

Village of Ruidoso resident Nancy Levy described a frightening drive Monday evening on congested U.S. 70 as she and her son fled to Roswell.

“Traffic was backed up really badly,” Levy said. “It was stop-and-go and stop-and-go.”

Levy and her son began their drive to Roswell about 7:15 p.m. Monday and took refuge at Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell.

She believed that her home in the 200 block of Raymond Buckner Drive had been destroyed.

“My place is right in the line of fire,” Levy said shortly before noon Tuesday.

“The tragic thing is I’m still paying on my place and now I’m going to lose it,” said Levy, who has lived in Ruidoso for about six years.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without a home,” she said. “It’s a scary situation.”

Lujan Grisham said the purpose of the emergency declaration was to unlock additional funding and resources to manage the fires.

“The magnitude of the fires is beyond local control and requires immediate state intervention to protect public health, safety and welfare,” according to a statement issued about 2:15 p.m. Tuesday by Lujan Grisham’s office.

The emergency declaration calls for the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to coordinate all requests for assistance.

“The horrific South Fork Fire and Salt Fire have ravaged our lands and property, and forced thousands to flee their homes,” Lujan Grisham said in the statement.

“We are deploying every available resource to control these wildfires, and to provide support to the Village of Ruidoso, the Mescalero Reservation and surrounding areas,” she said.

Martha Staab, spokeswoman for ENMU-Roswell, said about 150 people took refuge Monday night at the school’s gymnasium, where staff and students set up about 200 cots in preparation for fire evacuees.

Assistance came from a variety of organizations, including the Red Cross, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, Eastern New Mexico Medical Center and the Roswell Fire Department.

Meanwhile, the New Mexico Department of Health urged New Mexicans to consider air quality safety and wildfire preparation this week in response to wildfires in the state — particularly in Lincoln and Otero counties.

“Breathing in smoke can aggravate conditions such as asthma and other chronic lung diseases, as well as cardiovascular disease,” said Heidi Krapfl, acting director, Center for Health Protection for NMHealth. “Poor air quality can also create unsafe driving conditions in areas directly impacted by the fires.”

The state has set up a fire-information hotline where the public can obtain information about the fires or the whereabouts of family members. That number is 833-663-4736.

As of Tuesday evening, 51 New Mexico State Police officers were in Ruidoso, staffing checkpoints and patrolling streets “to keep an eye out for suspicious activity,” said Wilson Silver, an NMSP spokesman.

Ruidoso resident Joel Balderrama said that on Monday he was speaking with his neighbors, all of them watching the sky, when a sheriff’s or police officer drove up and told residents over a loudspeaker to evacuate and to leave their personal belongings behind.

“It was extremely concerning. Being a resident since 1992 we were always told to be ready during fire season to go. But then you get the notice and all of a sudden you’re just not prepared. When the day comes, you really don’t have an idea what to do,” he said.

Luckily, he still had cell service so he phoned his parents, who live about less than 2 miles away, to tell them he was picking them up. After leaving at about 6:30 p.m. and driving more than two hours on U.S. 70, they arrived at 1 a.m. in Las Cruces. That’s where Balderrama, a real estate broker, had a house he was getting ready to sell. His mother, he said, was fearful and scared. But all family members in the area are safe.

Living with the threat of wildfires is part of life in Ruidoso, Balderrama said, but he believes this fire will be devastating, given that the entire village has been ordered to evacuate.

Dave Tomlin, who moved with his wife Pamela to Ruidoso in 2015 after a long career at the Associated Press, said he and his wife could smell something burning outside early on Monday and by noon they became more nervous when it appeared the fire was headed closer to their home on Yellow Pine Road.

When the “sky was just a reddish black and brown mountain of smoke,” Tomlin told the Journal, they knew it was time to leave. The couple packed up their toothbrushes, a change of clothes and put the hitch on their vehicle to take their trailer and two small dogs with them. And they headed south to Alamogordo.

“We always certainly knew in our minds that wildfire was a part of the reality of living in Ruidoso,” said Tomlin, who is a member of the Ruidoso School Board. “Not until the fire was showing orange at its base did we really ever believe in our hearts that our neighborhood ... could be possibly destroyed.”

From their motel room in Alamogordo on Tuesday, Tomlin said they could see U.S. Forest Service tankers taking off and landing from the airport to fight the fire. They spent their time checking the wildfire apps and wondering where they should go.

Just two months ago, Tomlin recalled, actor Matthew McConaughey was in Ruidoso to film a movie called “The Lost Bus,” which is based on a book by Lizzie Johnson, “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire.” The book is about the devastating 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California, in which some 100 people died and the majority of the town was destroyed.

“Ruidoso has not seen a fire of this magnitude,” Tomlin said. “This is an extraordinary event for everyone. Just the worst nightmare.”

It was “odd and disorienting” not knowing what was happening to their village Tuesday afternoon, but Tomlin said whatever the future brings, “There will be a Ruidoso going forward and we are going back to it ...”

Here are all of our photos of the South Fork Fire that's burned thousands of acres around Ruidoso