Plumes of smoke rise from a pair of growing wildfires in northeast New Mexico on Friday, April 22, 2022 outside Las Vegas, N.M.. Southwest fires have burned dozens of homes in northern Arizona and put numerous small villages in New Mexico in the path of danger. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio) 
This image provided by the Nebraska State Patrol shows smoke from a wildfire, Saturday, April 23, 2022 near Cambridge, Neb. Several small towns, including Cambridge, Bartley, Indianola and Wilsonville, in Nebraska’s southwest and Macy in its northeast, were forced to temporarily evacuate because of the wind-driven wildfires. (Nebraska State Patrol via AP) 
The Calf Canyon Fire burns north of Las Vegas near the San Miguel and Mora County line Monday April 25, 2022. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP) 
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, left, talks Connie Guinn and her granddaughter, Bella Guerrero Munoz, at the emergency evacuation center in Las Vegas, Monday April 25, 2022. The Calf Canyon Fire has forced the evacuation of Guinn and her family, from Laboux, and many residents of San Miguel and Mora County. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP) 
The Calf Canyon Fire burns north of Las Vegas near the San Miguel and Mora County line Monday April 25, 2022. (Eddie Moore//The Albuquerque Journal via AP) 
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, right, talks with Floyd Trujillo, from Upper Rociada, at the emergency evacuation center in Las Vegas, Monday April 25, 2022. The Calf Canyon Fire has forced the evacuation of many residents of San Miguel and Mora County. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP) 
New Mexico’s Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, right, talks with from left, Shari Romo, Alfred Romo, Alfred Romero, and her granddaughter Jessa Abeyta, 5, all from Mora, at the emergency evacuation center in Las Vegas, Monday April 25, 2022. The Calf Canyon Fire has forced the evacuation of many residents of San Miguel and Mora County. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP) 
A hillside is seen burned in the background, Monday, April 25, 2022, while a family home was fortunate to escape the Tunnel Fire unscathed after the fire burned over 21,000 acres and at least 24 structures in the area, near Flagstaff, Ariz. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP) 
Edward Leazier comforts Sheila Dobson as the two survey what is left of their family home on Monday, April 25, 2022, after the Tunnel Fire burned through the community east of Flagstaff, Ariz., off of Brandis Way. Residents are just now being let back in to see the damage and begin the process of picking up in the wake of the wildfire. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP) 
The burned and twisted frame of a bicycle that once belonged to Trisha Peralta lies in the rubble of a burned shed on her family’s property Monday, April 25, 2022 after the Tunnel Fire destroyed the property, including the house, the week before. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP) 
In this photo released by the U.S. Forest Service, aircraft known as “super scoopers” battle the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fires in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico on Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Firefighters have been making significant progress on the biggest wildfires burning unusually hot and fast for this time of year in the western U.S. But forecasters from the Southwest to the southern High Plains are warning of the return the next two days of the same gusty winds and critical fire conditions that sent wildland blazes racing across the landscape last week. (J. Michael Johnson/U.S. Forest Service via AP) 
In this photo released by the U.S. Forest Service, an aircraft known as a “super scooper” battles the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fires in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Firefighters have been making significant progress on the biggest wildfires burning unusually hot and fast for this time of year in the western U.S. But forecasters from the Southwest to the southern High Plains are warning of the return the next two days of the same gusty winds and critical fire conditions that sent wildland blazes racing across the landscape last week. (J. Michael Johnson/U.S. Forest Service via AP)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. | Thousands of firefighters continued to slow the advance of destructive wildfires in the Southwestern U.S. but warned they were bracing for the return Friday of the same dangerous conditions that quickly spread the wind-fueled blazes a week ago.
Colorado and the Aurora region are under a “red-flag” warning from the National Weather Service from about 11 a.m. today until Friday night.
“Strong northwest winds are forecast to develop Friday and spread across the urban corridor and plains, with dry conditions during the afternoon leading to critical fire weather conditions,” weather officials reported. The highest danger will be over the southern plains where humidity will be particularly low, but given the forecast wind speeds, fire danger concerns still exist for areas north including the Denver metro and portions of the plains to the north and east despite more marginal humidity.”
At least 166 homes have been destroyed in one rural county in northeast New Mexico since the biggest fire currently burning in the U.S. started racing through small towns east and northeast of Santa Fe on April 22, the local sheriff said.
Winds gusting up to 50 mph were forecast Friday in the drought-stricken region. One expert said it’s a recipe for disaster on the wildlands where some timber has a fuel moisture drier than kiln-dried wood.
“It’s a very, very dangerous fire day tomorrow,” fire behavior specialist Stewart Turner said at a briefing Thursday night on the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
“Like we saw last Friday, epic fire behavior,” Turner said. “It’s a day that as a firefighter, we’ll write about, we’ll read studies about. It’s going to be a big fire day.”
A swath of the country stretching from Arizona to the Texas panhandle is expected to be hit the hardest by the return of the bad firefighting weather that has generated unusually hot and fast-moving fires for this time of year, forecasters warned.
Red flag warnings were in place Thursday for all of New Mexico and parts of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
More than 3,000 firefighters were battling fires in Arizona and New Mexico on Thursday — about half of those in northeast New Mexico, where more than 187 square miles (484 square kilometers) of mostly timber and brush has been charred.
They focused Thursday on preventing it from moving into the rural New Mexico community of Ledoux. That meant bolstering fire lines and sending in crews tasked with protecting structures.
“Great progress again today,” incident commander Carl Schwope said Thursday night. But “tomorrow has the potential to be a very destructive day.”
“It will be chaotic if anything close to what happened (last) Friday occurs,” added operations chief Jayson Coil.
Sheriff Chris Lopez, of New Mexico’s Miguel County, confirmed for the first time Thursday night the fire there has destroyed at least 166 residences, 108 outbuildings and three commercial buildings. He joined authorities in neighboring Mora County in pleading with residents to pay close attention Friday to sudden changes in closures and evacuation orders.
“Falling trees, possibly falling power lines, that’s the kind of winds we’re looking at,” Lopez said.
Turner, the fire behavior specialist, said the gusty winds are only part of the problem. He said moisture levels in downed logs and woody debris are “extremely dry”— just 2% in small twigs, pine needles and grasses that “actually carry a forest fire across the landscape.”
Moisture in a small log “the size of a 4-by-4 post you buy at the lumber store … are coming down to 8%,” he said. “Kiln-dry is 12%. So out there, that’s drying to what a kiln would do.”
In northern Arizona, authorities downgraded some some evacuation orders at a fire that has destroyed at least 20 homes near Flagstaff. It’s now estimated to be 43% contained. Another fire 10 miles (16 km) south of Prescott was 23% contained, but officials at both blazes warned of worsening conditions expected Friday.
Elsewhere, one national incident team continued to oversee a large prairie fire in Nebraska, where more than 200 firefighters were battling a blaze that has been burning since last week.
About 68 square miles (176 square kilometers) of mostly grasses and farmland have been blackened near Nebraska’s state line with Kansas, several homes were destroyed and at least one person was killed. That fire was 88% contained Thursday.
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Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Margery A. Beck contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.