ASPEN, Colo.—Two teenage boys are accused of starting two separate small wildfires on Monday.
The boys, who haven’t been identified because of they are under 18, have not been arrested but their cases will be referred to the district attorney, Sgt. Bill Linn said. They were identified by an off-duty police officer who recognized them from witness descriptions.
“We have identified the people involved, and by doing that we don’t think we have to worry about that behavior being repeated,” Linn said.
The first small fire broke out Monday afternoon and was quickly put out by someone with a shirt and a fire extinguisher. The second was reported shortly after that that the Aspen Center of Environmental Studies and staffers and firefighters kept it from spreading much.
Fire chief Darryl Grob believes the second fire was started by fireworks because of the spacing between the ignition points. It’s not clear whether fireworks also started the first fire.
On Tuesday, firefighters were able to stop three other fires in the High Country from spreading, including one near Red Cliff that was sparked by a campfire that escaped its ring. All three fires were believed to be human-caused since there hadn’t been any lightning in the area for six days.
Other fires were near Aspen and Edwards in Eagle County, where a 5 to 8 acre fire on a hillside came within a mile of houses. Three single-engine air tankers were called in to fight the Edwards fire and residents were asked to turn on their sprinklers to protect their homes.
That fire was contained Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
Crews were battling a 5 to 10 acre wildfire near Eagle with air tainkers that were dropping fire retardant, said Lee Ann Loupe, spokeswoman for the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit.
After days of hot, dry weather, the fire danger is extreme, said Lt. Josh Nagle of the Eagle River Fire Protection District. Even after seeing the smoke die down at the Edwards fire, nearby resident Liz Stern still felt uneasy.
“I’ll feel like I’m out of the woods when the snow comes in November. Or when we get a couple of days of rain,” she said.
The dry conditions led Breckenridge to cancel its Fourth of July fireworks show. The public fireworks display in nearby Frisco, staged over Lake Dillon Reservoir, was still scheduled for Wednesday as well as one in Vail.
In southwestern Colorado, a 50-acre fire was being allowed to burn in spruce-fir forest in the Weminuche Wilderness near Vallecito Creek, said Pamella Wilson, spokeswoman for the San Juan Public Lands Center. Fire managers observed it from the air Wednesday and said it was spreading to the east.
