As residents watched the escalating Las Conchas Fire, they didn't hesitate Monday when the order was given to evacuate.

From the smoldering ridges of Los Alamos to the smoke-filled valley in Cochiti Lake, residents fled the monster blaze, taking refuge in Santa Fe, Rio Rancho and Albuquerque — at the homes of friends and family or at hotels.

Sheila Luna started getting ready to leave Los Alamos on Sunday evening, so when the family got a reverse-911 call about mandatory evacuations Monday afternoon, the car was ready.

"The Conoco gas station ran out of gas last night, and at the next gas station I waited for 15 minutes before I could get the car filled up," Luna said in a telephone interview. "That part was kind of scary to me. A lot of people started getting out of town or at least started getting ready to get out of town last night."

Luna, her husband and two teenage daughters had been living at her father's house in the Quemazon subdivision in Los Alamos since February. Although she was stuck in a traffic jam heading out of Los Alamos around 2 p.m. Monday, the family was planning to spend the night and probably the following weeks at her mother's home in Rio Rancho.

"Some people are calm, and other people are really frantic," she said. "We are kind of somewhere in the middle. I don't really think there is a danger. I think they are being conservative in evacuating the town because of prior fires."

During the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000, her father's home was next to one burned to the ground. He and his wife secured a hotel room in Santa Fe, where they could remain with their two dogs, she said.

From Matthew Moody's home in Cochiti Lake, the Jemez Mountains looked like a live volcano Sunday night. He spent Monday packing up paintings and papers, and had friends on standby to help move furniture. The town has front-row seats to the conflagration, although evacuations there were still voluntary at press time.

"It's been a very long night out here, but now it's gotten eerily quiet," he said as he looked out the window again to check on the giant plume of smoke that hovered overhead.

Across the street, his neighbor hired movers to relocate her piano and other valuables. Moody, a real-estate agent, was planning to stay in a La Tierra home he's trying to sell.

Jack Stafurick was among those fleeing Los Alamos on Sunday night after a friend from Santa Fe offered him a place to stay.

"After hearing the horror stories from the Cerro Grande evacuation, I thought that maybe I didn't want to wait until they started making everyone leave," he said.

The Red Cross set up cots in a large room at the Santa Claran Hotel in Española to house up to 300 people beginning around 2 p.m. Meanwhile, area hotels — many offering discounted rates for evacuees — were filling up.

Kate Lettenburger, manager of the Residence Inn of Santa Fe, 1698 Galisteo St., said the hotel's vacancies were just about filled Sunday night.

"Everyone here is an evacuee, save a few," Lettenburger said.

Reporter Nico Roesler contributed to this report.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.