DENVER—Firefighters worked Monday to contain a series of wildfires in western Colorado, including one creeping toward homes and gas wells near Parachute.
The fires were triggered by about 50 lightning strikes from a storm that moved through the region Sunday night, said Mel Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management’s area fire management unit.
“We’re thinking that just about every lightning strike started a fire, some of them single trees and some of them quite large,” she said.
Of most concern was a 5-acre fire, dubbed the Cottonwood Creek fire, burning within 200 yards of gas wells and homes about four miles east of Parachute, she said. No evacuations or damage had been reported.
A 350-fire burned in a rugged, remote area of federal land above Interstate 70 between the Cameo exit and De Beque. “Although you can see it from I-70, it takes about four hours to reach it by vehicle,” she said.
There were about four others that remained active from Sunday night, Lloyd said.
Firefighting crews were dispatched from county and volunteer departments as well as the federal agencies. In addition, some air tanker and other aerial support have been summoned, she said.
The Monday forecast called for low humidity, high winds and high temperatures, conditions that were “ripe for fires,” she said.
