Boulder County is the latest area to declare a red flag warning Thursday amid windy and extremely dry conditions across Colorado.
The Boulder warning comes with a ban in all of unincorporated Boulder County of open burning until midnight, according to the bulletin by the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.
The has issued a Red Flag Warning for the Northwest section of Boulder County due to high temps, low relative humidity and gusty winds. NO OPEN BURNING is allowed in all of unincorporated Boulder County today, effective immediately and expiring at midnight, 9/14.
— BoulderCountySheriff (@BldrCOSheriff)
In the northwest corner of the state including Larimer County there is a red flag warning as well.
Steady winds of 15 to 25 mph are expected, along with occasional gusts up to 40 mph. The relative humidity will be between 5 and 12 percent, which is very dry, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Fire authorities say that any new fire is likely to spread rapidly.
Five large active wildfires are already burning within the red flag area, including the Bull Draw, Cabin Lake, Silver Creek and Seaman fires.
Here’s a roundup of the latest information about the wildfires.
Seaman fire
Sparking by lightning on Tuesday, the wildfire about 12 miles northwest of Fort Collins threatens about 11 homes in the Smith Bridge area. A voluntary evacuation is in place. There are no road closures.
this morning from Gateway Park. Greyrock and Hewlett trails closed due to fire. Last mapped at 168 acres. Red Flag Warning today.
— Forest Service, ARP (@usfsarp)
“It’s fairly close to Fort Collins so we jumped on it right away,” said Kristy Wumkes, fire spokeswoman.
The 231-acre wildfire in the lower Poudre Canyon is about 25 percent contained. A total of 120 firefighters are tasked to the high-priority wildfire.
A strong air support crew includes pilots of two heavy air tankers, three single-engine air tankers and three helicopters.
Silver Creek fire
Fire behavior increased significantly Wednesday in hot and extremely dry conditions in the northeast corner of the wildfire around Buffalo Park.
Fire managers ordered multiple single-engine airplanes to hit hot spots on Thursday. The total number of firefighters has dropped to 27.
The fire, 16 miles northwest of Kremmling, has scorched 5,008 acres.
A few forest roads remained closed to prevent people from accessing restricted fire areas.
Wildfires in Colorado and the U.S.
The map shows active wildfire locations and all 2018 fire perimeters*. The map defaults to Colorado; to see all wildfires, click “U.S.” in the view area. Click the map layers icon in the top right corner of the map to change map backgrounds and to toggle active and contained fires, and perimeters. Click a marker or perimeter for details. To view the full map and a table of all 2018 wildfires, click here.
*Data comes from two sources, and , and could contain inconsistencies. Map by Kevin Hamm and Daniel J. Schneider.