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New Mexico Wildfire Scar Burn Has Forest Officials Worried

Carson Hot Shots Tyler Freeman works to keep a burning log from rolling down a slope, Monday, May 23, 2022, as he and his co-workers work on hot spots from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire in the Carson National Forest west of Chacon, N.M. Crews in northern New Mexico have cut and cleared containment lines around nearly half of the perimeter of the nation’s largest active wildfire while bracing for a return of weather conditions that might fan flames and send embers aloft. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
Carson Hot Shots Tyler Freeman works to keep a burning log from rolling down a slope, Monday, May 23, 2022, as he and his co-workers work on hot spots from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire in the Carson National Forest west of Chacon, N.M. Crews in northern New Mexico have cut and cleared containment lines around nearly half of the perimeter of the nation’s largest active wildfire while bracing for a return of weather conditions that might fan flames and send embers aloft. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Santa Fe, N.M. (AP) -- As more than 3,000 firefighters in northern New Mexico continued to battle the nation’s largest active wildfire Sunday, federal forest officials worried about future flash floods, landslides and destructive ash from the burn scar.

The 7-week-old fire, the largest in New Mexico history, remained 50% contained after charring 492 square miles (1,274 square kilometers) in rugged terrain east of Santa Fe.