Wildfires Rage in Colorado and New Mexico Rj Sangosti/The Denver Post, via Associated Press Flames threatened homes in an evacuation area near Fort Collins, Colo., on Monday. The fire has burned nearly 60 square miles. DENVER - A fast-growing wildfire raged through dry forests and hillside subdivisions in northern Colorado on Monday, charring homes and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate in the latest out-of-control blaze to scorch the parched West. The fire was probably sparked by a lightning strike on Saturday, officials said, and it quickly exploded in size. By Monday, it had burned across nearly 60 square miles in the mountains about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, a college town, destroying more than 100 structures and spewing thick columns of smoke visible from miles away. The remains of a 62-year-old Larimer County woman who had been reported missing were found Monday, The Associated Press reported. In south central New Mexico, hundreds of people were forced to flee an uncontrolled 54-square-mile fire near Ruidoso as it engulfed home after home. In Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico, fire crews were still battling the largest blaze in the state's history, but officials reported that after burning for nearly a month across 434 square miles, the fire was 37 percent contained. Fire officials said the conflagration in Larimer County, Colo. - named the High Park fire - was the worst fire in the area in two decades. Fueled by whipping winds and dry brush left after an arid winter and during a hot spring, flames jumped across roads, raced up and down hillsides and doubled back on firefighters, burning some areas twice. "These things come together, and you can have a fire like this," said Reghan Cloudman, a spokeswoman for the joint command fighting the High Park fire. Officials cautioned that they might not have control of the blaze anytime soon, but they said they had not issued any evacuation orders for Fort Collins or its suburbs. Despite the strain created by the string of blazes early in fire season, officials in Colorado said they were flinging resources at the High Park fire. Four hundred firefighters were on the ground by Monday, with 100 more expected to arrive soon. And more than a dozen air tankers and helicopters had been sent toward the blaze. With slim chances for rain in the immediate forecast, fire officials were hoping that calmer winds, lower temperatures and more humid skies would help them halt the growth of the blaze. But they said it was still too dangerous to return to affected communities in Rist Canyon and Poudre Park to assess what had been destroyed and what had survived.