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 car.
