NEW CASTLE, Colo.—Authorities ordered the evacuation of 60 more homes in steep terrain in western Colorado on Tuesday as a wildfire spread to at least 1,000 acres and sent white and yellow smoke billowing into the sky.
Some of home owners evacuated also had to flee the 1994 Storm King fire that killed 14 elite firefighters. The terrain, including 55-degree inclines, is dangerous for firefighters. It includes highly the flammable Gambel oak and is subject to winds that change directions.
No structures had burned in the latest fire, but a total of 90 homes had been evacuated since Monday and residents of another 110 homes were asked to voluntarily evacuate.
It was not immediately known how many people had left their homes. Three people checked into a school used as a shelter for evacuees in New Castle.
Fire commanders said one firefighter suffered a hand injury and another was suffering from heat exhaustion.
Crews had dug a containment line around at least 15 percent of the fire. A back burn, a small fire started intentionally to head off the flames of a wildfire, appeared to be working.
Shifting winds spread the fire Monday afternoon and caused crowning in trees on the east side of a drainage, prompting the additional evacuations.
“It’s been a really scary fire. Its behavior has been bizarre. We’re struggling to get a handle on it,” Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said. The Storm King fire was similar, and had been burned for several days before busy firefighters got it. It exploded on a hot afternoon and only one of the firefighters even had time to deploy a shelter designed to be fire-resistant.
Chuck and Beverly Johnson were packing personal items Tuesday afternoon after being ordered to leave their home in Canyon Creek Estates.
“They said we had to leave. We never did leave during Storm King even though they told us to,” said Chuck Johnson, a retired forester. “We are getting our valuables, paintings and getting out of here. The smoke from the fire is tremendous. The southwest wind is really driving the thing.”
Bureau of Land Management spokesman David Boyd said the fire was moving east, toward the homes. Boy said the flames were within a half-mile of houses.
The fire was burning in steep terrain covered with brush pinon pine and juniper trees and dotted with rural subdivisions between New Castle and Glenwood Springs, about 160 miles west of Denver. Containment was listed at zero percent.
A second fire in a remote and rugged area near the town of Cameo, 180 miles west of Denver, had reached 1,000 acres by Tuesday morning but had not grown further by evening, BLM spokeswoman Mel Lloyd said. A containment line was dug around 80 percent of the fire and two of the three aircraft on the fire were released.
About 120 firefighters remained at the scene.
A third blaze was contained Monday night after charring four acres outside the town of Parachute.
All three fires were blamed on lightning strikes Sunday.
About 200 firefighters, two heavy air tankers, four helicopters, two single-engine tankers and six fire engines were battling the fire near New Castle, and more crews were on the way.
The wind began to pick up Tuesday afternoon, as fire managers feared, and tongues of flame and black smoke were visible within the white plume.
Dan Thimsen, 51, had to evacuate during the 2002 Coal Seam fire, which started in the area when vegetation on the surface was ignited by a long simmering underground fire. When he evacuated Tuesday, he grabbed “20 years of kid memorabilia,” some guitars, guns and his two dogs.
“This area is so free of the other disasters going on around the country, hurricanes, floods. You think you’re safe, and all of a sudden, nature does something like this,” Thimsen said.
