5,000 under evacuation orders as New Mexico wildfire rages

New Mexico: Douglas Siddens' mother was among those who made it out with just the clothes on her back when a deadly, wind-fuelled wildfire ripped through a mountain community in southern New Mexico. The RV park where she lived was reduced to metal frame rails and steel wheels, said Siddens, who managed the site.

I had like 10 people displaced. They lost their homes and everything, including my mom, he said.

The fire has destroyed more than 200 homes d killed two people since it broke out on Tuesday near the village Ruidoso, a vacation spot that draws thousands of tourists and horse racing fans every summer.

Hundreds of homes and summer cabins dot the surrounding mountain-sides. The RV park that Siddens managed is near where an elderly couple was found dead this week outside their charred residence.

Elsewhere in the US, crews have been battling large fires this week in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, where a new blaze forced evacuations on Friday along the Rocky Mountain's eastern front near Lyons about 29 kilometres north of Boulder.

That fire was burning in the Blue Mountains near the Larimer-Boulder county line about 32 kilometres

southeast of Estes Park, the east entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

In New Mexico, power was restored to all but a few hundred customers, but evacuation orders for close to 5,000 people remained in place.

Donations poured in from surrounding communities all too familiar with just how devastating wildfires can be.

It was a decade ago that fire ripped through part of the village of Ruidoso, putting the vacation spot on the map with the most destructive wildfire in New Mexico's recorded history when more than 240 homes burned and nearly 181 square kilometres of forest were blackened by a lightning-sparked blaze.

On Friday, Mayor Lynn Crawford was rallying heartbroken residents once again as firefighters tried to keep wind-whipped flames from making another run at the village. She said the response from their neighbours has been amazing.

So we have plenty of food, we have plenty of clothes, those kinds of things but we still appreciate and need your prayers and your thoughts, the mayor said during a briefing. Again, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased, to those that have lost their homes.

Authorities have yet to release the names of the couple who died. Their bodies were found after worried family members contacted police, saying the couple had planned to evacuate on Tuesday when the fire exploded but were unaccounted for later that day.

While many older residents call Ruidoso home year round, the population of about 8,000 people expands to about 25,000 during the summer months as Texans and New Mexicans from hotter climates

seek respite. agencies