Firefighters battled several fronts to prevent the fire, the largest in the United States, from pushing into more populated areas as it fed the state’s dry landscape. The fire has engulfed more than 217 square miles (562 square kilometers) and the flames are visible from the small town of Las Vegas in northeastern New Mexico, just miles away. Fire officials said they were encouraged by a forecast for Tuesday to improve humidity and shifting winds. However, the flame is expected to continue to grow, setting it on a good path to possibly being one of the largest and most destructive in the state’s recorded history. The sky above the historic city square, which became famous as the backdrop for many movies and TV shows, was a sickening hue of yellow and gray as the dense smoke chased away the sun. As ash fell around them, Chris Castillo and his cousins ​​cut down trees and moved logs away from a family member’s house. “We are all a family here. “We are trying to make a line of fire,” he said Other members of the family were traveling in cattle trailers, waiting for anyone to call to help move the animals. Fires have become a year-round threat in the drought-stricken West, which is moving faster and burning hotter than ever due to climate change, say scientists and fire experts. In the past five years, for example, California has experienced the eight largest wildfires in the state’s history, while Colorado saw a devastating blaze in suburban neighborhoods last December. The fire in northern New Mexico – which was rekindled by a prolonged period of heat, dry and windy – was carried out by ballooning on Sunday, prompting authorities to issue new evacuation orders for the small town of Mora and other villages. “This is a long-term event and we do not expect to have ‘control’ of this fire any time soon,” fire officials said in a statement on Monday. Residents in some remote neighborhoods of the city of Las Vegas said they were ready to leave their homes as smoke drowned out the economic hub for families of farmers and ranchers who lived for generations in rural areas. No evacuation had been ordered in the city since Monday afternoon. Las Vegas is also home to the University of New Mexico Highlands and is one of the busiest stops along Interstate 25 before the state of Colorado. Operations Chief Todd Abel said crews were busy using bulldozers to build fire lines to prevent flames from pushing into neighborhoods. Firefighter Mike De Fries said crews took a break Monday afternoon as the wind eased and helicopters were able to drop water at key locations. However, flames running along the ridges above the city were visible from the discount store, an empty baseball field and other benefits. The county jail, the state psychiatric hospital and more than 200 students from United World College have been evacuated and businesses that remained open found it difficult to find workers as more people were forced to flee their homes. “We try to house and feed people with skeleton crews. Hundreds of people have lost their homes. “It’s a great tragedy,” said Alan Afeld, a Las Vegas hotelier. He said most of his staff had been evacuated from their homes and canceled guest bookings to accommodate firefighters and emergency crews. The 197 patients at the Institute of Behavioral Health were sent to other facilities across the state, with some being transported to safe units and others being escorted by police. State environmental officials and officials in Las Vegas also urged people to save water to ensure firefighters have enough to fight the fire. Across New Mexico, officials and groups were collecting food, water, and other supplies for the thousands displaced by the fires. Offers of prayer and hope flooded social media as residents posted photos of the flames burning at the tops of tall ponderosa pines near their homes. Some of those who lived near the fires described the week in which the fire raged nearby as devastating. On the north side of the fire, displaced people climbed the Mora River valley over the Sangre de Cristo mountain passes on Monday. State spokesman Roger Montoya, from the Chacon Highlands, said neighbors put what they could not carry in cans and left them in irrigation fields, hoping the humidity would provide some protection. Officials say the fire in northeastern New Mexico has destroyed or destroyed 172 homes and at least 116 structures. It merged last week with another fire that broke out in early April, when a planned fire escaped the curb after being set up by land managers to clean brushes and small trees in hopes of reducing the risk of fire. The causes of the other fire are still being investigated. Jesus Romero, deputy director of San Miguel County, helped the family watch their home in the smoky air full of ash on Monday. He cut down trees around his garage as a fire prevention measure and spoke to other residents who were undecided about whether to leave. He described the situation as serious. Another fire in New Mexico burning in the mountains near the Los Alamos National Laboratory also caused more evacuations over the weekend and other communities were called in to prepare for evacuation if conditions worsened. It has reached the marks of the fires that engulfed the region a decade ago, when New Mexico had one of its worst and most devastating seasons. A fire in 2000 forced the laboratory to close and left about 400 homeless. The community was threatened again in 2011 when another fire caused by a damaged power cord went blacker than the surrounding forest. In the southern New Mexico community of Ruidoso, two people were killed in a fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in April. This mountain community saw a similar disaster from a fire in 2012. New fires were reported over the weekend – three in Texas, two in New Mexico and one in Oklahoma and Tennessee, according to the National Fire Service. More than 3,100 wildfires and support staff are battling wildfires across the country, with about a third trying to prevent the spread of wildfires in New Mexico. More than 4,400 square miles (11,400 square kilometers) have been burned across the United States so far this year.

Associated Press authors Terry Tang and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this report. Montoya Bryan reported from the Albuquerque of New Mexico.