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By Ollie Reed Jr. And Theresa Davis / Journal Staff Writers Published: Thursday, April 28th, 2022 at 9:43AM Updated: Thursday, April 28th, 2022 at 10:59PM

LAS VEGAS, N.M. – It took generations for the Gomez family to build their ranch in Rociada and just hours for a wildfire to roar in and wipe away so much of that hard work.

Jerry Gomez, a 65-year-old cattle rancher, says the fire destroyed his house as well as his garage, all his ATVs, a barn and a saddle house and the saddles in it.

“I built that saddle house out of hand-hewed logs, the old way,” he said Thursday morning. “I though it might survive the fire because it was made with these big logs, but no.

“What are you going to do when the dragon comes? You just got to shake it off, roll around and get up and go.”

The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire has destroyed 277 structures in San Miguel County, Sheriff Chris Lopez said Thursday evening.

The total includes 166 homes, 108 outbuildings and three commercial buildings.

At least nine homes, four outbuildings and one commercial building were damaged.

Officials have not reported any injuries or fatalities.

Red flag fire weather conditions on Friday could fuel the fire’s growth and threaten containment lines.

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Gomez returned to his family ranch in Rociada on Thursday. His great-grandfather founded the ranch before statehood in 1912.

He knows some of his 200 head of mostly Black Angus and some Red Angus died in the fire, but he has hopes that many survived.

During a phone interview from the ranch, Gomez said he had found 34 unharmed and was looking for the rest, as well as several horses.

“I have not found any of the horses, alive or dead, or any tracks,” he said.

He said he had been able to move several pieces of heavy equipment used in his excavation business to Sapello and was trying to get more moved. Some heavy equipment was destroyed in the fire.

The blaze has burned more than 64,000 acres in San Miguel and Mora counties and is 37% contained.

Thursday, things seemed somewhat calmer in Las Vegas and areas north of there. It was not as smoky along N.M. 518, between Las Vegas and Mora.

The roadblock that once blocked access to the village of Las Dispensas, west of 518, was no longer in place.

A drive to the village revealed trees that were charred, but still standing and ground that was blackened.

But no decimated structures were visible from the road. The fire had raced through the village cemetery, singeing and stripping foliage from smaller trees and bushes and burning the trunks of larger trees but leaving stones and markers mostly undisturbed.

In an iron fence surrounding one gravesite, stuffed animals inserted in the fence bars had been licked by fire but clung bravely to their station.

Meg Sandoval knows that her double-wide trailer has been lost. She just wants to get back to her home in Rociada and look for her 19-year-old cat, Jinx.

She had to leave the cat when she evacuated her home this past Friday and drove to Las Vegas.

“She’s a cranky, old girl,” Sandoval said of the cat. “She does not travel well, does not like to ride in cars. I had to respect that. I spent a lot of time with her before I walked out the door.”

On Thursday, Sandoval attended a meeting with representatives of the Governor’s Office at Memorial Middle School in Las Vegas.

She was among 50 concerned citizens who had questions about everything ranging from financial assistance to school classes for their children.

Sandoval wanted to know when she would be allowed to go home and look for Jinx.

“It seems to me that everybody and his brother except me has been let back in,” she said.

Officials could not tell her when she could go back. They said it was still dangerous there and most people are not being allowed to return.

Sandoval lives on a 640-acre family property in Rociada. Her father was born there in 1930. She and two sets of aunts and uncles reside there, and other family members visit.

“I have been living out there for about five years,” she said. Sandoval said she had been told that four of five houses on the property had been lost.

“I was living in a pretty fancy double-wide,” she said. “I lost some furniture from my maternal grandmother, beautiful antiques from Wyoming. I am a quilter and I lost fabrics. I love to cook and I lost my pans and kitchen gadgets. But in the scheme of things, it was just stuff.”

She got out with her 85-pound German Shepherd, Osa, who does not mind riding in cars, along with dog food, four-days-worth of clothing, pictures of her son, a computer, chargers and vitamins.

Sandoval wants to try to find Jinx, but she does not think she wants to live in Rociada again.

“It would be too heartbreaking,” she said. “I want to stay in New Mexico, some place rural.” And not too far from Rociada.

Paul Aragon, general manager of the Pendaries village and golf resort, said Thursday that the fire destroyed between 35 and 50 homes in that community.

The Moosehead Lodge and the village’s administrative building also burned down. But the log chapel is still standing.

This week Aragon has been notifying residents whose homes burned.

“Although it was hard to hear the devastating news, one of the first questions they had was, ‘How is everybody else? How are my neighbors?'” Aragon said.

Last Friday as the fire approached Pendaries, Aragon drove down as many roads as possible.

He honked his horn and banged on doors to tell anyone who had stayed behind to evacuate.

“The smoke was extremely dark. The smoke was ominous, and I knew that we were in trouble,” Aragon said. “The wind shifted, and two or three hours later the ridge was on fire. It was horrific.”

Firefighters are using water from Pendaries to attack the blaze from the air.

Mora County has not completed structure damage assessments.

Friday has “the potential to be another very destructive day,” said incident commander Carl Schwope.

Wind gusts of up to 48 mph could push the fire northeast toward Ledoux, a community about 10 minutes from Morphy Lake and Mora.

“We are in a little bit different place than we were last week,” Schwope said. “Last week we had maybe 200 firefighters, now we’ve got nearly 1,000. We’ve got a lot of prep work, a lot of structure protection, especially in the Ledoux area.”

Mora County Undersheriff Americk Padilla said power has been shut off in the Ledoux area in anticipation of Friday’s fire behavior.

“Be prepared,” Padilla said. “Pack your bags. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”