Weather conditions will likely give firefighters working to contain the massive Aspen Acres fire an edge again Sunday.
“Yesterday was our first day without red flag warnings and we have no red flag warnings for today,” Operations Section Chief Brad Washa, of Alaska Complex Incident Management Team No. 1, said in the Sunday morning briefing.
“This means we are not being as defensive as we have in the past, having to chase the fire,” he said. “We are actually getting out in front of the fire.”
The massive Aspen Acres fire southwest of Pueblo grew to 86,983 acres on the Saturday, as hundreds of additional firefighters arrived to shore up defenses against its relentless march.
There are now about 800 people deployed to fight the fire, which is about 13% contained.
Washa said the strategy for using aircraft to fight the fire has shifted from large tankers dropping retardant and water to helicopters making precision drops. Seven helicopters are on scene and an eighth is en route from California, he said.
The main areas of focus include protecting the communities of Rye and Colorado City, he said.
The western flank of the fire, where it is burning in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest, is considered a low priority, he said, because the terrain where the fire is burning is too steep to safely deploy crews.
“We flew that yesterday,” he said. “There were some forest health issues, with a lot of dead and down material, also dead standing snakes and that’s a concern for firefighters.”
The Aspen Acres fire is the highest-priority fire in the nation when it comes to requests for support, officials say.
The Aspen Acres fire now is the eighth largest wildfire by acreage in Colorado history. It now stands just a few hundred acres behind the High Park fire, which burned 87,284 acres west of Fort Collins in 2012.
Authorities said Thursday the fire was human-caused but have released no further details.
A damage assessment team from Custer County went to the area where the fire started on June 29 to begin an inventory of lost structures, the county sheriff said in a Facebook post Sunday morning. The team was expected to be out by about noon.
“We will also try our hardest to get our community members the lists of damaged and destroyed homes,” the post said. People responded with heartfelt messages of support and shared their addresses, hoping the teams would let them know if their homes still were standing.
More than 180 structures have been destroyed, including at least 55 homes in Custer County, fire officials previously said.
The Aspen Acres fire started in Custer County and quickly spread into Pueblo County as high winds fueled days of rapid growth, leading to the evacuations of roughly 3,800 homes, affecting 11,000 people, authorities said. Parts of Fremont and Huerfano counties were also on pre-evacuation notice. All evacuation orders remained in effect Sunday morning.
Bishop Castle, a popular tourist attraction, was still standing, the Custer County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday on Facebook. The property was evacuated as the Aspen Acres fire spread.
On Saturday morning, officials said the fire had reached Colorado 165 and crossed it in several areas. Fire crews were mopping up burned areas where the fire had passed in Colorado City to extinguish hot spots and prevent the flames from rekindling.
Bulldozers made new containment lines north of Rye and along parts of the western flank of Colorado City as well as the eastern edge of the fire. Crews were also building dozer lines along the fire’s northeastern flank, along Siloam Road and around Galbreath Creek and Wales Canyon.
During the Sunday briefing Washa said he was encouraged by reports from team leaders of the work done the day before that included the words “a lot more mop up” and “looking at containment.”
Ferris fire
More than 500 people are fighting the Ferris fire near Dolores where crews conducted burnout operations to remove dry grass and other fuels between the edge of the fire and natural barriers, including roads. Removing fuels reduces the likelihood that a fire can make a run past the barrier.
The Ferris fire grew to 42,758 acres and was estimated at 7% contained Sunday evening, a slight decrease from an earlier estimate of 9%. “As we explained in a previous post — when the fire grows and no additional containment is added, the containment number is going to go down,” fire managers said in a Facebook post Saturday night.
The fire swept through the Dolores River Canyon on Friday and grew on its western flank, increasing the threat it posed to residential areas.
Two Super Scooper planes joined the more than 300 personnel assigned to the blaze. The planes, which fly 100 mph as they scoop up water to refill their tanks, were expected to be flying in and out of McPhee Reservoir.
Snyder fire
Reports from the Snyder fire west of Grand Junction were unchanged Sunday morning. The 30,202-acre fire was 95% contained, up from 65% on Friday.
All evacuations and pre-evacuations from the fire on the Colorado-Utah border were lifted as of Thursday.
The blaze previously merged with the Jones fire and later overtook the Knowles and Gore fire. Firefighters Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson were killed June 27 while fighting the Knowles fire.
Gold Mountain fire
Crews attempting to slow the spread of the Gold Mountain fire near Ouray made enough progress on the southwestern side that U.S. 550 has reopened, though with pleas from the Ouray County Sheriff to motorists not to stop along the road.
The fire increased by about 500 acres overnight and is now estimated at 26,405 acres with 824 people assigned.
Jeramy Dietz, operations section chief Rocky Mountain complex incident management Team 3, said Sunday morning that crews are using masticators to cut fire lines in steep, rugged terrain are waiting for opportunities to burn other areas to stop the fire’s spread. Much of the work is focused on the southern, western and northern flanks of the fire.
Along the fire’s northern boundary officials were working on a three- to five-day plan to defend against potential growth in the High Mesa and Silverjack Reservoir areas. A group of water tenders was stationed in the area to help protect structures in the area.
Speaking in front of a map of the Gold Mountain fire Sunday, Dietz gestured to the eastern flank in the Uncompahgre Wildness Area between Ouray and Lake City. He acknowledged the team’s limited resources have been pointed toward protecting buildings, roads and other infrastructure at risk if the fire spreads.
“It is not that we do not care,” he said, “but we are trying to make sure we get the best bang for our buck.”
The Ouray 100 endurance race scheduled to begin July 17 has been canceled, organizers said in a social media post. The fire has already burned some segments of the race course and air quality in southwestern Colorado is a concern, they wrote. “Our responsibility extends beyond our runners, including to our volunteers and the community around us,” they wrote. “Weighed against everything above, we believe going forward with the race is not the responsible call.”
Willow fire
The Willow fire near Leadville grew by 900 acres overnight, mostly to the south, causing Lake County Sheriff Pete Speckman to issue mandatory evacuation orders for neighborhoods southwest of town and order others, including along the road to Twin Lakes, to be ready to go.
The fire has burned about 3,957 acres and is about 1% contained.
Lake County Search and Rescue crews are going door to door in the Lake Fork, Stargazer Circle and County Road 11 neighborhoods, where residents were told to be out by noon Sunday.
The county has updated its evacuation map.
The shelter at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville has closed and people are being sent to the Public Safety Complex at 200 Steele Drive in Buena Vista, and Battle Mountain High School in Edwards. People who are evacuated must visit one of these shelters to pick up credentials, known as Salamander cards, that will allow them back into their neighborhoods.
Firefighters spent 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,” a previous update said. “An initial attack contingency group is being established north of Turquoise Lake should the fire cross the lake.”
This is a developing story that will be updated.