With New Mexico’s monsoon weather pattern entering full throttle this week, state fire officials say the dangerous period for wildland fires is nearing its end.
“We’ve been lucky so far this year. Arizona got hit pretty hard,” said Julie Anne Overton of the Santa Fe National Forest. “Once the monsoon season arrives, we go to a lower alert level.”
So far in 2017, New Mexico has seen about 20 wildfires, which have burned some 60,000 acres, the smallest number of fires in years and a huge contrast to the drought year of 2011, when the state lost 1.2 million acres to 1,800 fires, according to data compiled by the State Forestry Division.