Stats confirm state's worst fire season

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It's now official.  The massive wildfires in New Mexico last summer were the biggest and most destructive in the state's history.

The National Interagency Fire Center made the announcement Friday adding that fires all across the West burned more than nine million acres during 2012.

The Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire started in May in the Gila National Forest and burned about 300,000 acres before it died down.

And the Little Bear Fire started just a month later in the mountains above Ruidoso and burned almost 50,000 acres while destroying 242 homes.

The fire center reported a bit of good news saying that overall fewer acres in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas burned this year than in 2011, a fire season that included the record-setting Wallow Fire burned rage over about 840 square miles.