ALBUQUERQUE — Relief is in sight for drought-stricken New Mexico and many other parts of the West as Mother Nature appears ready to ease up on her back-to-back blows of stifling heat and gusty winds.
A break in the unfavorable weather cannot come soon enough for the hundreds of firefighters battling a blaze in the Navajo Nation that has consumed more than 20 square miles of pinon and juniper forest along with grazing lands that the owners of tribal livestock have used for centuries.
The Assayii Lake fire has destroyed at least four structures. Another 50 homes near the rural communities of Naschitti and Sheep Springs were threatened, with some in Naschitti evacuated.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service said storms moving across the Southwest have helped raise humidity levels, and the winds are expected to die down by Thursday, giving firefighters the window needed to directly attack the flames.
‘‘What we saw over the past three or four days will basically end tomorrow,’’ meteorologist Chuck Maxwell said Wednesday. “No more wind.”