The wildfires burning in the Southwest are bad but 'not unprecedented'

In this photo provided by the New Mexico National Guard, a New Mexico National Guard Aviation UH-60 Black Hawk flies as part of firefighting efforts, dropping thousands of gallons of water with Bambi buckets from the air on the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire in northern New Mexico on Sunday, May, 1. (New Mexico National Guard via AP)

In New Mexico, the massive Calf Canyon-Hermits Peaks Fire is now officially the state's largest recorded wildfire in modern history, eclipsing the 297,845 acre Whitewater-Baldy Fire Complex of 2012. On Monday morning fire officials listed Calf Canyon-Hermits peak at 298,060 acres.

Fanned by erratic and unpredictable winds and growing by more than 90,000 acres in the past week, Calf Canyon-Hermit Peaks fire has already burned more acres than burned last year in all of New Mexico.