McKenna Thompson, 30, was not too worried when she learned last week that she was among thousands of people across Arizona, Nebraska and New Mexico who would be forced to leave as wildfires approached.
She had been driving back home to Flagstaff, Ariz., when she heard about the evacuation order. As smoke swirled around her car and the skies darkened, she soon felt as if she were “looking at hell,” she said on Sunday. She picked up her 2-year-old son and her mother and drove to a cafe to wait out the fire.
A few hours later, she learned that her home had burned down.
Ms. Thompson was caught up in the Tunnel Fire, which officials estimate has damaged or destroyed 30 homes. Displaced families have been left with rubble, ashes and a harrowing reminder of what they’ve lost.
“Everything is gone,” Ms. Thompson said.
The Tunnel Fire was one of many wildfires this past week that have collectively scorched more than 150,000 acres and forced the evacuations of at least 4,000 homes, officials said. The fires, which have been blamed for at least one death, are part of an early and active season across the country, as wildfires have also plagued California, Colorado and Texas.
Corey Mead, a National Weather Service forecaster, said that Nebraska had seen “above normal” activity during its current fire season. The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said that the fires had come well before the beginning of the state’s wildfire season. “It’s going to be a tough summer,” she said.
Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity in the United States, and wildfire seasons are growing longer. Research has suggested that heat and dryness associated with global warming are major reasons for the increase in bigger and more powerful fires.
In New Mexico, Ms. Lujan Grisham said at a news conference on Saturday that, of the fires burning in her state, the largest threat was the Calf Canyon fire, east of Santa Fe, which put more than 900 homes at risk.
The Calf Canyon fire has combined with the Hermits Peak fire, about 12 miles northwest of Las Vegas, N.M., at the base of Hermits Peak in the Pecos Wilderness. The Hermits Peak fire started on April 6 after “unexpected erratic winds” from a prescribed fire in the area caused the blaze to grow, officials reported.
Ms. Lujan Grisham said that more than 200 structures had been burned and that 1,000 firefighters had been dispatched. By Sunday, the Calf Canyon fire had burned more than 54,000 acres and was 12 percent contained.
Two other fires in the state, the Cooks Peak Fire and the Mitchell Fire, have burned 52,000 acres and 25,000 acres, the state fire authorities said.
More than 3,400 homes in New Mexico were under mandatory evacuations, and more than 3,000 homes were under voluntary evacuations because of the wildfires.
Julie Anne Overton, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe National Forest, said that a storm on Sunday night might bring relief to parts of New Mexico, but that the weather would be dry and warm again later this week. She added that it was rare to see fire conditions in April.
“I think we’re seeing climate change in action,” she said on Sunday.
Coconino County in Northern Arizona was under a state of emergency as firefighters struggled to contain the Tunnel Fire, which is about 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff. More than 750 households in the area had to evacuate, according to the governor’s office.
The fire in Coconino County, which began on April 17, was only 3 percent contained as of Sunday and had already burned more than 21,000 acres.
One of the casualties of the Tunnel Fire has been the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, which has been “burned in its entirety,” the park said on Facebook.
The monument, which occupies 3,040 acres and is surrounded by Coconino National Forest, is centered around a cinder cone that is the youngest volcano of the largest volcanic field in the contiguous United States.
In Nebraska, one person was killed and three firefighters were injured as wildfires that began on Friday, fueled by high winds and dry grass, burned throughout the western and central regions of the state, the authorities said.
A spokeswoman for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said on Sunday that there were reports of additional injuries in other fires but that she did not immediately have specific details.
The state’s National Guard deployed trucks and at least three helicopters to help, and the state’s Wildland Incident Response and Assistance Team sent specialists to several fires, the emergency management agency said on Saturday.
Steve Jansen and Alyssa Lukpat contributed reporting.
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