MORA, N.M.—Firefighters in New Mexico failed on Friday to pin back the flames of the United States’ largest wildfire, which is burning perilously close to a string of mountain villages.
The blaze is the most destructive of dozens in the U.S. Southwest that are more widespread and burning earlier than normal in the year.
Thousands of people in the Mora valley, about 40 miles northeast of Santa Fe, prepared to evacuate as smoke billowed from a forest around the nearby farming community of Ledoux.
High winds blew embers over a mile, spreading a wildfire that has scorched about 75,000 acres, or 117 square miles, of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains since April 6, destroying hundreds of homes and structures.
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