Escape from killer New Mexico wildfire was 'absolute sheer terror,’ says woman who fled the flames

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 smoke was at the end of the street when they tore out of the driveway. Panic set in as the usually sleepy two-lane streets of Ruidoso became gridlocked, with cars inching along bumper to bumper, sometimes taking as long as an hour to go a single mile. As they crept forward, smoke from one fire was ahead and smoke from another behind. Bukovitz had no idea where the flames were.

“It was absolute sheer terror, like I