The dry conditions, heat and wind in the Rocky Mountain region fueled three wildfires burning on more than 38,200 acres Sunday evening.
Light rain Sunday helped firefighters gain partial control.
North of Durango in La Plata County, a 2,255-acre 416 fire in the San Juan National Forest forced evacuation of hundreds of homes and “is going to burn into the Hermosa Wilderness Area,” federal inter-agency team spokeswoman Vickie Russo said.
U.S. Forest Service officials told firefighting crews that “this is going to be ‘full suppression,’ ” Russo said.
Firefighters Sunday night called the fire 10 percent contained.
Air tankers over the weekend dropped red fire-retardant slurry on land near the flames — ten miles north of Durango along U.S. Highway 550. Parts of the highway were closed. On Sunday, six helicopters lugging buckets dumped water on flames, Russo said.
Just south of Colorado in northern New Mexico, the 36,083-acre Ute Park fire produced huge clouds of smoke that wafted north into the San Luis Valley, mixing with a plume moving east from the wildfire north of Durango.
Rain helped, said Linda Kearns, spokeswoman for the federal team battling that blaze.
“It is not coming up toward Colorado. It is still south of Raton,” Kearns said.
Sunday night in northwestern Colorado, a wildfire broke out near Dinosaur National Monument and was burning on about 20 acres. “It threatened the Dinosaur National Monument headquarters,” according to a federal Bureau of Land Management dispatcher. Firefighters from the National Park Service and BLM teamed with volunteers and crews from Utah who reaced to protect federal structures as wind and dry grass fed flames.
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