By Andrew Hay

PEÑASCO, N.M. (Reuters) – Paula Garcia does not know how far she will have to flee after a wildfire tore through her drought-hit mountain community in northern New Mexico.

Homes that had been destroyed along the route to Mora are gone. Garcia, who is hiding from the fire with an intensity and speed none of these Hispanic communities dating back to 1800s can recall, has left behind heaps of metal.

Mora is approximately 2 miles away from the blaze.

It is one of many fires across the U.S. Southwest, which scientists claim are larger and more destructive than others. They also started earlier in this year because of climate change.

Garcia stated that fire transformed the forests and valleys north of Santa Fe into “moonscapes”.

By phone, she stated that while we’ve been aware of forest fires our entire lives, this was on an unprecedented scale. “We’re scared. These villages, all in the northern part of Norway are completely surrounded by mountains and this is only April. Is there anything happening in June?

Garcia leads a New Mexico group advocating traditional irrigation ditches that were first used to cultivate food by Native Americans.

At an evacuation center in Peñasco, 24 miles (38.6 km) northwest of Mora, locals blamed destruction from the fire on the U.S. Forest Service, which administers the areas where it began.

Ricardo Fresquez, a logger, stated that the agency stopped locals from cutting down trees and logging their forests around their villages. This was a practice they have done for many generations. It has left them with a congested forest and made it more fire-prone.

Fresquez said that “our resources aren’t being used and are going upin smoke”, adding that his family, which has been living in the Mora region for 185+ years, is not using them.

The Forest Service began to work with villages and local communities to thin the forests in recent years.