Small towns evacuated as wildfires hit US states

A wildfire burned out of control for a fourth day in the steep mountains of southwestern New Mexico, one of several blazes that have consumed more than 200 square miles (520 square km) of rugged land in six US states. Efforts to contain the blazes spreading in sparsely populated areas of Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah have been hurt by gusting winds and tinder-dry late-spring conditions. Several small towns, including the historic Wild West mining town of Mogollon were ordered to evacuate, as the spreading fire torched miles forest, brush and grass, according to Reuters. New Mexico's Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire, which was started by lightning 10 days ago, had raged across 82,252 acres as of Friday and officials said the area could now be much larger than that. More than 580 firefighters and support crew have been fighting the blaze. Smoke from the New Mexico fire wafted north into the Denver metropolitan area on Saturday, as firefighters battled a separate wildfire burning on the Utah-Colorado border. That 2,800-acre fire was burning in a remote area near Paradox, Colorado, US Forest Service spokesman Steve Segin said. He said there were only a few isolated ranches in the area and no structures had been lost so far, although the wind-driven blaze was "very active." He said the cause was under investigation. Most of western Colorado has been put under a "red flag" warning for wildfires due to hot temperatures, low humidity and high winds, according to the National Weather Service. More than 1,000 miles (km) to the east, a wildfire in Michigan's Upper Peninsula had grown slightly to cover an area of more than 21,000 acres by Saturday, stretching in a narrow band 11 miles long from about 14 miles north of the village of Newberry to Lake Superior, the state's Department of Natural Resources said. Dry conditions posed problems at the northeastern end of the blaze, where firefighters have concentrated efforts dropping water from air tankers, Dean Wilson, a spokesman for the state DNR's western fire management team, said on Saturday evening. In Utah, officials said a wildfire burning on the west side of Promontory Point, the tip of a peninsula that juts into the Great Salt Lake, had grown to 4,200 acres, but was 50 percent contained. The fire, touched off by lightning on Thursday, was burning uphill in the Promontory Mountains, on public and private land, the officials said. No structures have been lost, they said.