Brandon R. Oberhardt / Associated Press
In this Thursday, May 31, 2012 photo provided by the U.S. Forest Service, a firefighter's boots kick up ash along a burned area of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. More than 1,200 firefighters are battling the blaze that has charred 340 square miles, or 218,000 acres, of terrain in the rugged mountains and canyons of southwestern New Mexico. (AP Photo/U.S. Forest Service, Brandon R. Oberhardt)


Albuquerque -- - More than 1,200 firefighters battled the nation's largest wildfire Saturday in rugged mountains and canyons of southwestern New Mexico, racing to build lines to corral the huge blaze.
The fire has charred more than 354 square miles of the Gila National Forest, and fire managers expected it to start burning down the mountains east of the community of Glenwood. While there was no immediate threat, residents there have been immersed in a thick haze of smoke for days. At night, the ridgeline in the distance lights up with flames.
Fire officer Lee Bentley said some of the crews that have been burning out vegetation ahead of the fire will be repositioned to keep it from getting any closer to the community.
"We're going to continue fighting this fire aggressively without putting our firefighters in danger," he said.
The fire is about 15 percent contained, with much of that being on the fire's northern and northwestern flanks.
The blaze - the largest on record in New Mexico - has destroyed a dozen cabins and eight outbuildings.
Some pockets of vegetation remain unburned within the fire's perimeter, and members of the incident management team say most of the blaze has produced only minimal to moderate fire scars.
It's too early for the ecologists, soil scientists and hydrologists to get on the ground to start assessing the fire's effects, but they hope much of the area can recover given that only a portion of the fire has burned with the kind of intensity that can vaporize entire stands of trees and damage the soil.
Another factor in the fire's behavior is the Gila forest's decades-old strategy of allowing lightning-sparked fires to play more of their natural role in cleaning up the forest's litter. Fires within the Gila Wilderness are often managed rather than immediately extinguished.