Mop-up crews fully contained the Green Mountain wildfire just after 4 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 23 hours after it started Monday evening and was visible by much of the Denver metro area.
Hand crews spent Tuesday extinguishing hot spots where scrub oaks were burning, said Steve Aseltine, spokesman for West Metro Fire Protection. Most of the wildfire burned grasslands, he said.
About 160 firefighters from a dozen agencies were able to achieve and hold 90 percent containment through Tuesday, according to a West Metro Fire Protection report.
Lakewood police, West metro investigators and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents are together investigating the cause of the fire, Aseltine said. The cause and origin are still unknown.
Update The fire is now 100% contained.
— WestMetroFire (@WestMetroFire)
Using mapping equipment, an airplane flyover determined that the wildfire covered an area of only 96 acres, not the 300 acres previously estimated, Aseltine said.
The wildfire, visible throughout the metro area, was Two hours later, the fast-moving blaze forced evacuations from a neighborhood on the east side of Green Mountain.
Crews attached to 52 apparatus — engines, brush trucks and tenders — aggressively attacked the fire, according to messages posted to the West Metro Twitter account. By 8:30 p.m., they were at 90 containment. Evacuations were called off at 9:20 p.m.
Temperatures, which dipped to the low 20s overnight, helped firefighters maintain 90 percent containment.
“This one — for all practical purposes — is in a metro area where thousands and tens of thousands of people can see it,” Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis said Tuesday morning. “Resources were called very very quickly. It worked like it should. No houses or buildings were burned as far as I’ve heard, and no firefighters or citizens were hurt. I don’t know of any problems.”
Team effort @ -160 firefighters, 52 apparatus – engines, brush trucks, tenders & medic units from a dozen agencies.
— WestMetroFire (@WestMetroFire)
A 1 a.m. West Metro tweet said the cause of the fire was not yet known. An investigation will continue Tuesday morning. Davis said there were no reports of campers or people seen in the area where the fire erupted. There also was no reports of lightning.
Evacuee Jana Schulder said she found out about the fire online Monday evening then looked out her bedroom window on Dakota Place. She saw flames.
A walk down her street brought another sight of fire and smoke on the hill that “reminded me of lava coming out of a volcano,” she said. By the time she got the evacuation notice at 7:19 p.m., it looked like it was starting to die down, but she left anyway.
“It was far enough away that I was more sad because I like to hike on Green Mountain,” Schulder said. She had hiked there earlier in the afternoon, in fact — and noticed the dryness.
The fire broke out on the large open space south of West Sixth Avenue and east of C-470. The area is grassy with patches of brush but few trees. The glow of flames atop Green Mountain was visible from downtown Denver and other parts of the metro area.
William Frederick Hayden Green Mountain Park, the area’s official name, is about 2,400 acres, according to the city of Lakewood.
Firefighters took up positions in the neighborhoods to knock down flames if they advanced near homes. Winds were gusting above 20 mph in the area. They later slowed into the teens.
Evacuees were sent to Creighton Middle School, and a couple dozen cars filled the school’s parking lot.
Robbe Sokolove knew something was wrong on Green Mountain, four blocks from her home on West Mississippi Court, before she saw a report of the fire on the TV news. Her dog, Morrie, was acting out of sorts.
“He’s very hyper-sensitive to environmental stuff,” she said, and probably smelled the burn.
Soon her landline and cellphone were ringing with the reverse-911 notification.
“It was very hard to tell from the news exactly where it was,” Sokolove said of the fire, or how far from her home.
A trained Red Cross volunteer, Sokolove took no chances. “My first instinct was to pack up my dog and three cats and notify my daughter,” who was at work. “Whatap bizarre to me is this is not lightning season. To me, I’m thinking itap got to be human.”