'Huge firefight' to defend New Mexico villages, city from blaze

Thousands of residents of northern New Mexico villages evacuated on Sunday as fierce winds drove the largest active US wildfire towards their drought-parched mountain valley.

Winds gusting over 64 kmph blew embers a mile ahead of the blaze to start new fires as bulldozers carved fire breaks to protect the villages of Ledoux, Mora and Cleveland around 64 km northeast of Santa Fe.

They are among farming communities and an Old West city in the path of the Calf Canyon fire, the most destructive of a dozen Southwest blazes that scientists say are more widespread and arriving earlier this year due to climate change.

"Where are we supposed to run to, where do we go, this is where our livelihoods are," said Darlene Gallegos, a farmer and co-owner of Mora's country market, after police told her to close the store and flee the village of 1,000 settled in Spanish colonial times.

Twenty miles to the south at the other end of the 104,000 acre megafire, some residents of Las Vegas, New Mexico, were told to prepare for evacuation as winds drove the fire within five miles of homes near interstate highway 25.

Burning since April 6, the fire has destroyed hundreds of properties and forced the evacuation of dozens of settlements in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but has yet to claim a life.