Scenes of devastation emerge in New Mexico as ‘dangerous’ floods follow wildfires

People in New Mexico at risk from devastating wildfires this week are now facing “extremely dangerous” flooding.

At least two people died in the South Fork and Salt Fires which have destroyed 23,000 acres in southern parts of the state since Monday.

Some 7,000 people in and around the village of Ruidoso, around 200 miles south of Albuquerque, were forced to evacuate on Monday. A total of 8,000 people in the region have been evacuated, with many of them staying in emergency shelters. The larger South Fork fire destroyed some 1,400 buildings in the area, including 500 homes, said New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham.

“It is heartbreaking to look at what our landscape looks like after a fire moves through it,” Kerry Gladden, a spokesperson for the Village of Ruidoso, told The New York Times. “Such a thing of beauty now has whole mountain sides that are covered with charred trees.”

And now, Ruidoso is facing “extremely dangerous” flooding in the wake of the fires as thunderstorms, hail and high winds hit the region, the National Weather Service said. Burn scars left behind by wildfires make areas more susceptible to flooding because charred ground can’t absorb water, unlike healthy soil and vegetation.

Meanwhile, heavy rain and lime-sized hail turned the nearby village of Willard into “a large lake,” forecasters told The Associated Press. The storms dropped up to eight inches on the 200-person village in just eight hours, and flooding also left dozens of cars stranded on a nearby highway.

“My semi weighs 80,000 pounds, and it was rocking,” commercial truck driver Mike Bischoff told the AP.

Meanwhile, blowing dust caused by severe weather in northern New Mexico caused a highway pileup on Wednesday. Eighteen people were hospitalized, Santa Fe New Mexican reports.

People were also rescued from their homes in the Ruidoso area after being stranded by heavy flooding, forecasters said.

Emergency crews were forced to evacuate from eight different areas on Wednesday due to the extreme flooding but have since returned and continued rescue efforts in Ruidoso, public information officer Jerry Corliss told The Independent on Thursday.

Emergency crews worked quickly on Thursday to clear roadways of debris caused by the floods, Corliss added.

The region remains under a flash flood watch until “late” on Thursday. Emergency crews worked quickly on Thursday to clear roadways of debris brought in by the floods, Corliss told The Independent.

New Mexico state police said at least two people died in the blazes. Patrick Pearson, 60, died on Tuesday. Officials found him on the side of a road near a motel with several burns.Police have yet to identify the second person, whose skeleton was found in a charred vehicle also on Tuesday.

The governor has declared a state of emergency in Lincoln County and the Mescalero Apache Reservation due to the fires.

The human-caused climate crisis will continue to create prime conditions for destructive wildfires as global temperatures increase, making rain more erratic and droughts more prolonged and intense. Climate scientists say that it is very likely 2024 will be the hottest year on record globally, following the record-setting temperatures of 2023.

From 2000 to 2024, the acreage in the US destroyed by wildfires has more than doubled compared to the 1990s.