Escape from killer New Mexico wildfire was 'absolute sheer terror,’ woman says

Belinda Bukovitz was jolted into action by the sound of police outside her home shouting through a loudspeaker: “Go now, go now, go now!” Realizing this was not like other wildfires that had threatened her mountain village before, she, her husband, son and two cats bundled into three separate cars and fled. The South Fork and Salt fires that raged in south-central New Mexico this week prompted thousands of people like Bukovitz to flee for their lives and destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures — about half of them homes, according to Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford.