Cold, damp weather on Sunday is helping crews battle the Cal-Wood fire north of Boulder, but authorities say mandatory evacuations prompted by the dramatic blaze aren’t expected to be lifted soon.
“The high humidity and the mist and everything is helping,” said Jennifer Bray, a spokeswoman for the Boulder County Office of Emergency Management. “The firefighters are working hard, digging line.”
The downside of the weather is that aerial firefighting operations are on pause until it lifts, Bray said.
The fire has so far torched 8,788 acres. It began about 12:30 p.m. Saturday near the Cal-Wood Education Center in Jamestown and quickly raced east.
MORE: “It’s not looking good”: 900 homes north of Boulder evacuated because of raging Cal-Wood fire
Meanwhile, a new fire started on Sunday afternoon to the southwest of the Cal-Wood burn area. The Lefthand Canyon fire was burning on about 5 acres as of 2 p.m. and had prompted the evacuation of 145 homes in and around the town of Ward. Within minutes, more people — including those in the Gold Hill neighborhood — were being told to leave the area.
The Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center said it was sending an armada of aircraft to fight the Lefthand Canyon fire. The agency said homes are being threatened.
County officials said they won’t know until later Sunday how homes or other structures were destroyed by the Cal-Wood fire. A Colorado Sun freelance photographer witnessed several burn.
“We are assuming, just based on the fire behavior and the way that it moved, that there are homes or structures that are damaged or lost,” Division Chief Mike Wagner, with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, said Saturday night. “We don’t know where yet.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but Wagner said natural causes have preliminarily been ruled out because there was no lightning in the area on Saturday.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Forest Service have launched a joint investigation into the fire, which is the largest — in terms of acreage — in Boulder County’s recorded history.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, who earlier in the week sent 22 deputies to help evacuate people from the Cameron Peak fire in Larimer County, said in a Facebook post late Saturday night that he fears many homes were lost in the Cal-Wood fire. “Wind and drought made for a no-win day.”
There are no active reports of people missing because of the fire. One firefighter was hurt, but their injuries were described as being very minor.
The fire is 5% contained. The town of Lyons is on evacuation warning status just in case the fire is driven north by high winds.
About 250 firefighters are on scene battling the blaze. “More firefighting personnel are on tap and are beginning to arrive,” Wagner said.
Bray, the spokeswoman for the emergency management agency, said it’s unlikely people evacuated because of the fire will be able to return to their homes on Sunday because of firefighting operations and changing fire conditions.
Jamestown and areas west of U.S. 36 north of Boulder remain under mandatory evacuation orders on Sunday.
A map of the burn area shows that the fire passed through some subdivisions and areas where there are homes and businesses.
“Priorities today are fire containment, suppression and damage assessment,” Bray said
The hope is that firefighters can build a line around the entire perimeter of the fire.
A Type 2 incident management team has been ordered to take over control of the firefighting command.
Colorado has been enduring several months of wildfires. The Cameron Peak fire, west of Fort Collins, continues to rage. This week, it became the largest recorded wildfire in state history. By Sunday morning, the blaze had grown to more than 203,000 acres.
Over the summer, wildfires on the Western Slope scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.
On Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor announced that all of Colorado is under drought status for the first time since 2013. Scientists have attributed months of hot, dry weather in the state to the effects of climate change.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
Our articles are free to read, but not free to report
Support local journalism around the state.
Become a member of The Colorado Sun today!
The latest from The Sun
"wood" - Google News
October 18, 2020 at 05:17PM
https://ift.tt/2T5yIKC
Sunday's weather aids Cal-Wood firefighters, but a new blaze is threatening in Boulder County - The Colorado Sun
"wood" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3du6D7I
No comments:
Post a Comment