Two small NM fires erupt Sunday, including one in Grants neighborhood that burned 14 structures
Members of the Mimbres wildland firefighting team dig fire line during a wildfire in 2024. (Photo Courtesy NM Forestry)
Two small wildfires prompted evacuations and burned a few structures in the Grants and Socorro areas Sunday, though a state Forestry spokesperson said Monday that crews were making progress.
Witnesses spotted the Otero Fire in the bosque east of Socorro and the Alamo Fire in a neighborhood in Grants on Sunday evening. The Grants Fire is fully contained at between 3 and 5 acres, said Forestry spokesperson George Ducker. Despite progress overnight in Socorro, where crews built a fire line across the northern edge of the 360-acre fire, the Otero Fire is 0% contained, Ducker said.
The causes of both fires remains under investigation, Ducker said, though they occurred amid high winds and ongoing drought across the state. The National Interagency Fire Center earlier this month warned that most of the state would experience above-normal wildfire risk, and that the risk would spread to the western two-thirds of the state as May approaches. A new forecast is expected in the next few days.
High winds around 7 p.m. pushed the Alamo Fire on the east side Grants into structures, burning eight structures and six outbuildings and prompting evacuations. Residents are being allowed to return this morning, Ducker said, and crews will focus on watching for hotspots and dealing with the burned structures, now that the fire is fully contained.
In the Socorro-area fire, crews detected active wildfire burning on the south end of the perimeter. They plan today to hold and increase containment lines. No structures are threatened in that fire, and no evacuation orders are in effect.
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