A drought-driven wildfire in the US state of New Mexico explodes into a 'megafire' of 406 square kilometres and could still more than double in size
Fueled by ferocious spring winds in parched mountain forests, the fire is by far the largest and most destructive currently burning in the United States.
"It's already 100,000 acres. It could easily double in size, maybe even bigger than that," Incident Commander Carl Schwope, told a briefing on Saturday. Around 48 km east of Santa Fe, the fire has destroyed hundreds of properties, triggered thousands of evacuations and on Saturday burned within a few kilometres of the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico, population 14,000. The blaze grew about 50 percent in 24 hours as a giant column of flame collapsed on Friday night, raining embers and starting new fires. Residents of Las Vegas awoke to pieces of charred wood the size of a US quarter coins carpeting the city.
Under the scenario of a two-degrees-Celsius rise in global temperatures, scientists expect US West wildfires to burn twice the area they do now by as early as mid-century.
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