The Aspen Acres fire made an 8-mile run overnight and has grown to more than 74,000 acres as more than 350 firefighters are working the wildfire southwest of Pueblo, officials said Friday morning in an update.
Mandatory evacuations remained in effect for communities near the Pueblo-Custer county border, including Beulah, Colorado City and Wetmore. More than 3,800 homes have been evacuated, affecting about 11,000 people, officials said during a news conference Friday afternoon. Pueblo County Sheriff Dave Lucero said the Colorado National Guard is coming in to help his agency.
The fire has burned 74,265 acres as of Friday afternoon, up from the 50,187 acres reported Thursday afternoon, and is approximately 20 miles from Pueblo. “There is no threat to Pueblo at this time,” the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office said early Friday morning.
“This fire is going to be with us for a long time,” Jim Pitts, agency administrator of the U.S. Forest Service, said during a Friday night briefing. “It’s not only a large fire. It’s a very complex, rugged topography, and it’s going to be impacting our communities for a while.”
The Aspen Acres fire is now the eighth largest wildfire in Colorado history, according to the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control data. It is behind the High Park fire, which burned 87,284 acres west of Fort Collins in 2012. Colorado’s largest wildfire on record is the Cameron Peak fire, which burned 208,913 acres in 2020. The other two largest wildfires in state history also were in 2020 (East Troublesome at 193,812 acres and the Pine Gulch at 139,007).
Fire officials said Thursday the fire, which started June 29, was human-caused but have not released more details on their investigation.
Officials are urging the public to skip their own Fourth of July fireworks and sparklers to avoid setting off any other fires.
“We don’t need one more spark,” Pitts said. “We need to be diligent. We need to support our community. We really need to think about our neighbors. A lot of our neighbors are being displaced because of these evacuations.”
Officials anticipate another challenging night of challenging conditions that will only make it harder to contain, including winds that could gust up to 40 mph into early morning, according to Sophia Adams, incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Adams said warm and dry conditions will continue Saturday with greater chances of thunderstorms “that could bring gusty outflow winds” and little rain.
Come Sunday, Adams predicts a better chance of precipitation, though still low. Moving into the week, the area could see afternoon showers and thunderstorms, but temperatures will stay hot.
Those conditions will continue stoking the fire, said Eric Trimble, fire behavior specialist for the Aspen Acres fire.
“Those thunderstorms, when they dissipate, they send outflow winds in here and it basically feeds the fire and the unfortunate thing is it throws the fire in multiple directions,” Trimble said. “So for the next several days, we’re going to have pretty much active to extreme fire behavior.”
He said Friday night will be “very active” with “fairly vigorous winds” expanding the fire in the lower southern half more toward Rye.
East winds starting Saturday morning will push the fire away from structures back up into the forest for the rest of the week, Trimble said.
Weather is the main driver behind the blaze, according to Brad Washa, operations section chief for the federal Alaska Complex Incident Management Team, a federal team that began oversight of response efforts on Thursday.
“Coming out of last winter with the lack of snow, we have very dry fuels,” Washa said in a late Friday morning update. “The other thing we’re seeing with that lack of snow is the grass that remained over winter didn’t get compacted down so that’s contributing to our impacts.”
Officials are growing more concerned about Lake Isabel’s surroundings where cabins are located after flames jumped Highway 165.
“That is a major concern,” Washa said during the Friday night briefing. “We have been making efforts to do protection in there, but in some of those areas the ability to defend those homes is limited just because their position on the slope, the vegetation around them and that sort of thing.”
The one bright spot, Washa said, is that the response team started beefing up resources in the area Friday to get ready to put “boots on the ground.”
“We’re feeling a little bit better as far as not having to bring resources in on an emergency,” he said. “We’re getting resources positioned tonight so that we’re ready to respond to what the fire does with us.”
Helicopters, air tankers and scooper planes have also been on the scene. Aircraft will continue flying Friday night until it gets dark, Washa said.
A section of Pueblo Reservoir is closed to boating so aircraft fighting the fire can pull water from the lake.
CPW officers are on the water ensuring that recreational boaters “are hugging the shoreline” to keep “a safe pathway” for aircraft coming from Pueblo Memorial Airport, said Dean Miller, a spokesperson for CPW’s Southeast Region.
Miller said he was at the reservoir Thursday evening talking to families and described the popular camping spot as “a pretty solidly packed Fourth of July weekend.”
“Quite simply, this is a different situation as they’re looking immediately out to the southwest and seeing the smoke from the Aspen Acres fire as they sit at their campground,” he said. “And it’s not something obviously anyone anticipated as they planned their Fourth of July weekend weeks ago.”
Miller noted that campers and boaters are being respectful and following restrictions.
“People only need to look up and see the smoke in the air from their boats and their watercraft to understand how important it is that these aircraft have access,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of sympathy for the communities impacted, and I think the people that are on that lake recreating over this long weekend, they feel that.”
Low visibility has been reported south of Pueblo on parts of Interstate 25 as smoke from the fire crosses the highway.
The forecast for Friday continues to be dry and hot with wind gusts near 35 mph, officials said. “Extreme fire is expected again on Friday with possible crown runs and group tree torching. Live trees, brush and shrubs are drought stressed and very dry,” according to the incident management team leading the fire response.
At least 180 structures had been destroyed as of Wednesday night. Officials believe that number will rise as the fire grows and teams can safely enter neighborhoods to conduct assessments.
Here is a roundup of the other major fires burning in Colorado:
Ferris fire
Officials reported initial containment on the fire Friday night at 9%, down from 10% Thursday. The fire, located in southwestern Colorado about 20 miles northwest of Dolores, has burned 33,248 acres and there are 365 people on the scene.
Officials working the fire said Friday morning they are anticipating the arrival of two Super Scooper planes. They will be flying in and out of McPhee Reservoir picking up water to deliver to the northeastern side of the fire. The reservoir is not closed, officials said, “but recreationists are asked to remain alert for low-flying aircraft and stay clear of scoopers as they collect water to ensure the aircraft can operate safely.”
The aircraft approach the water at about 100 mph and can scoop up 1,600 gallons of water in 12 seconds.
Helicopters began pulling water from the reservoir to dump on the fire last week, according to Ken Curtis, general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.
Responders on Thursday also began loading firetrucks with water from the Dove Creek Canal that runs north toward Dove Creek to try to prevent blowing embers from jumping west across the river where more private property sits, Curtis said.
He expects “normal boating activities” in the reservoir along with people fishing and water skiing, even as water levels remain low.
“I imagine there will be people out on this hot July 4th, but between the low levels and stuff, we didn’t expect huge crowds from out of town,” Curtis said.
The conservancy district encourages firefighters to tap the reservoir any time they need it for wildfires, he said.
“We’re going to be pushing 90 today, and thankfully the winds hadn’t been quite as bad since last weekend or early this week,” Curtis said. “We always support and provide water as needed and hopefully they can get it managed until the rains hopefully come.”
Gold Mountain fire
Burning 2 miles northeast of Ouray, the fire has grown to 21,031 acres and there are 539 people working to contain it, officials said Friday morning.
There are more national forest closures, including southeast of Ridgway, east of U.S. 550 and the town of Ouray, south of U.S. 50, and west of Lake City. The area extends across the Uncompahgre Wilderness toward the Little Cimarron drainage and Uncompahgre Peak, reaching north to the Big Blue Creek ridgeline before returning west along the Forest boundary toward Dexter Creek Road.
Willow fire
As of Friday morning, the fire about 6 miles west of Leadville has burned 2,355 acres since starting Sunday afternoon. There are roughly 340 people working the fire.
Crews spent Thursday working north of Turquoise Lake to protect structures in that area, as well as southeast and east of the general fire perimeter using hose lays, pumps and structure protection wrap, fire officials said in an update Friday morning.
Firefighters will work Friday in the Twin Mounds area at the base of Mount Massive “to limit damage to nearby power lines as fire continues moving in a downslope direction toward Turquoise Lake,” the update said. “An initial attack contingency group is being established north of Turquoise Lake should the fire cross the lake.”
The Forest Service on Friday morning expanded its closure area and it now includes a larger portion of the Leadville Ranger District.
Snyder fire
Fire crews are making progress on containing the fire burning west of Grand Junction, and the Snyder fire is now 65% contained, officials said Friday morning. It has burned 30,194 acres since starting Saturday in Utah then pushing east into Colorado.
This is a developing story that will be updated.