LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – A smattering of summer rain gave a boost to firefighters battling a huge forest fire near Los Alamos, giving authorities enough confidence Sunday to allow about 12,000 people to return home for the first time in nearly a week.

Residents rolled into town, honking their horns and waving to firefighters as the word got out that the roadblocks were lifted and the narrow two-lane highway cut into the side of a mesa leading to Los Alamos was open. They had fled en masse last week as the fast-moving fire approached the city and its nuclear laboratory.

“It’s scary, but all of the resources here this time, they were ready. They did a magnificent job,” said Michael Shields, his eyes tearing up as he returned to his apartment in the heart of town.

The town was last evacuated because of a devastating fire in 2000 that destroyed 200 homes and several businesses. This time, residents returned to a town that is completely intact, although the fire scorched 63 homes west of town.

Although the threat to Los Alamos and the nation’s premier nuclear research lab had passed, the mammoth wildfire raging in northern New Mexico was threatening sacred sites of American Indian tribes.

Hundreds of firefighters were working to contain the 189-square-mile fire as it burned through a canyon on the Santa Clara Pueblo reservation and threatened other pueblos on the Pajarito Plateau. The fire, burning for eight days Sunday, has been fueled by an exceptionally dry season in the Southwest and by erratic winds.

 


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