With towering pine trees and cool mountain breezes, a pocket of southern New Mexico draws thousands of tourists and horse racing fans every summer. It’s also a community that knows how devastating wildfires can be.

It was a decade ago that fire ripped through part of the village of Ruidoso, putting the vacation spot on the map with the most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history when more than 240 homes burned and nearly 70 square miles (181 square kilometres) of forest were blackened by a lightning-sparked blaze.

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Now, Mayor Lynn Crawford is rallying heartbroken residents once again as firefighters on Friday tried to keep wind-whipped flames from making another run at the village and the hundreds of homes and summer cabins that dot the surrounding mountainsides.

More than 200 homes already have burned, and an elderly couple was found dead this week outside their charred residence. While power has been restored to all but a few hundred customers in the area, evacuations for close to 5,000 people remain in place.

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Crawford said the village is overflowing with donations from surrounding communities.

“So we have plenty of food, we have plenty of clothes, those kinds of things but we still appreciate and need your prayers and your thoughts,” the mayor said during a briefing. “Again, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased, to those that have lost their homes.”

Authorities have yet to release the names of the couple who died. Their bodies were found after worried family members contacted police, saying the couple had planned to evacuate Tuesday when the fire exploded but were unaccounted for later that day.

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Near where the bodies were recovered, in Gavilan Canyon, the fire reduced homes to ash and metal. An 18-home RV park was completely destroyed.

“I had like 10 people displaced, they lost their homes and everything, including my mom,” said Douglas Siddens, who managed the park.

Siddens said his mother was at work when the fire broke out “with just the clothes she had on and that’s all she has left.”

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Everyone got out of the RV park safely before the flames hit but “it’s completely levelled. Like, all that’s left are metal frame rails and steel wheels,” Siddens said.

While many older residents call Ruidoso home year round, the population of about 8,000 people expands to about 25,000 during the summer months as Texans and New Mexicans from hotter climates come seeking respite. Horse races at the Ruidoso Downs also draw crowds, as it’s home to one of the sport’s richest quarter-horse competitions. The racing season was expected to start May 27, and horses that board there aren’t in any danger as fire officials use the facility as a staging ground.