Firefighters, police and other rescue personnel scrambled throughout southeast Colorado late today to fight wild grassfires whipped by the wind.
Structures have burned and mandatory evacuations were in effect in Baca County, after a grassfire started in Cimarron County in Oklahoma and jumped north across the state line. The fight was complicated by a secondary fire that started when a vehicle rolled over in a highway accident, officials said.
Southbound U.S. 287 was closed for a time in the area, and authorities were offering shelter to evacuated residents in the Campo Community Center. Authorities said tonight that a fire of between 1,800 and 2,000 acres was 85 percent contained, but that evacuations were still in place. They did not know this evening how many people had been required to evacuate.
Meanwhile, multiple agencies in Bent County were also fighting a wind-whipped grassland fire, and authorities there said they may have had some firefighting equipment damaged by the fast-moving flames. There were a small number of evacuations in Bent County, with no word on any structural damages.
