Aspen Acres fire could burn for a “long duration” and last into winter

As firefighters focus on stopping the Aspen Acres fire from continuing a western march, they are making arrangements and lining up reinforcements to battle the blaze for weeks if not months.

“This is a long duration event,” Brad Washa, Alaska Complex Incident Management Team 1 section chief, said Saturday. “It’s not going to be out before we leave. And like many fires that occur on the Colorado Front Range, they can go well beyond today, and many times it’s the snow that falls in the wintertime that puts them out.”

More than a third of the fire, which has been burning since June 29 in Pueblo and Custer counties, has been contained. Containment jumped from 28% on Friday to 34% Saturday, but fire officials are concerned about increasingly hot and dry conditions that they say will persist through the weekend. 

The Aspen Acres fire is nation’s second-largest burning fire. It has consumed 97,505 acres, making it the state’s seventh largest fire on record. More than 1,900 firefighters and support staff are working the blaze.

The west side of the Aspen Acres fire poses the greatest challenge to firefighters because of its rugged terrain and dry fuel, fire officials said. Crews and resources were rerouted to the west and southwest side of the fire on Friday, and air support involving helicopters with water-scooping buckets and airplanes dropping fire retardant are assisting once again on Saturday.

“It’s in very steep terrain,” Washa said in a video update posted Saturday to Facebook.

Bulldozers are building and reinforcing containment near State Highway 165 trying to stop the fire from marching west. Type 1 Black Hawk helicopters are among air support, dropping buckets of water and loads of fire retardant on the forested area. 

“We did hit it pretty hard,” Washa said. “We had a number of large airtankers and the V-LAT, the very large air tanker, that is a DC-10 size aircraft come in here and put some retardant (down).”

While the fight remains fierce on the western and southern parts of the fire, the town of Beulah received some good news. The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office announced Saturday that many Beulah residents will be able to start a phased re-entry on Monday as long as fire conditions hold. 

“To ensure everyone can return safely and efficiently, residents are asked to follow their assigned re-entry time and route and not arrive before their designated time,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. 

Before returning, residents must obtain a re-entry card from the Disaster Assistance Center located at 29 Lehigh Ave. in Pueblo, the sheriff’s office said. The center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Fire officials used drones with heat detectors to direct fire resources and also go over Beulah to search for remaining hot spots. 

“Little heat was detected near Beulah on Friday, but work remains on containment lines to protect the community from potential flare-ups in the interior of the fire area,” the fire incident management team said in a statement. “The Aspen Acres area has also cooled, but hot spots were detected and targeted near Bishop Castle.”

Fire officials remain concerned with evening gusts and winds pushing the fire south into Rye and west into thick forest that includes Ponderosa pine, Gambel oak and white fir. If the fire climbs into the trees canopy, “we really can’t stop it,” Washa said.

“The biggest concern is those outflow winds hitting a part of the fire,” he said. “We don’t necessarily want to see that occurring.”

While fire crews have been putting in bulldozer-containment lines on the southern borders of Rye, Washa said, they don’t believe it will be enough. 

“This is a major concern for us. We are hoping that we can catch it but we don’t put our strategy in hope. We need to have alternatives.”

Those alternatives include thinning forested areas on private property, and emergency management officials are attempting to contact about 100 property owners to gain permission to work on their land. They have made about “25 positive connections” so far but have had trouble reaching some landowners because of dated public records and contact information that includes defunct land phone lines.

Further north along the western edge, fire officials are feeling more confident in their containment efforts around Lake Isabel.

“Really feeling real good about the containment,” Washa said, while on the east side of the Aspen Acres fire, “each day, we are seeing less and less heat.”

Fire officials have opened a new fire management operations base camp at a Custer County school campus in Westcliffe, where more than 200 firefighters are based. 

Pueblo County officials have said the Aspen Acres fire has destroyed more than 250 homes and four commercial buildings while a private aerial imagery company’s analysis suggests the Aspen Acres fire may have destroyed about 780 structures across Pueblo and Custer counties.

Evacuation orders and pre-evacuation warnings remain in place across Custer, Pueblo, Fremont and Huerfano counties. For more information on evacuations, closures and disaster assistance in Pueblo and Custer counties, call the Joint Information Center at (719) 583-4640.

Custer County Sheriff Richard Smith will host a community meeting for Custer County residents in Westcliffe at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Wet Mountain Valley Saddle Club Rodeo Arena, 90 County Road 241. The meeting will be broadcast on Facebook.

Ferris fire

On Saturday, the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office issued an elevated pre-evacuation notice for Ferris Fire Evacuation Zone 15, which stretches from the Dolores River Canyon west to state Highway 141 and from the county line north to the top of Slick Rock Hill.

The “SET” pre-evacuation level is one step up from “READY” status and means residents should be prepared to leave immediately. The next status level is “GO,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement posted to Facebook.

Residents choosing to evacuate on Saturday should check in at an evacuation center at the Dolores Senior Center in Dove Creek at 8540 Road 7.2 to provide contact information and stay in contact with emergency officials.

Nearly 20% of the Ferris fire has been contained. The wildfire continues to burn in and around Dolores Canyon, north and west of the Dolores Canyon overlook, fire management officials said in a statement on Saturday.

“While the fire grew slightly, it remained on the eastern side of Dolores River around Box Elder Campground and is still within the planned primary control lines,” officials said.

Firefighters continued to build containment lines along the rim of Dolores Canyon. Airplanes and helicopters dropping fire retardant are pushing the blaze away from those buffers. The fire has burned 63,271 acres as of Saturday. It is the 10th largest state fire on record.

On the northeast portion of the blaze, hotshot crews and heavy machine operators continue to dig lines from Benchmark Lookout north to Willow Draw. 

Nearly 850 firefighters and support staff are attending to the Ferris fire.

Residents who need transportation assistance in the case of a mandatory evacuation should pre-arrange rides by calling (970) 729-3497 to arrange ADA compliant transportation assistance, the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office said. 

Sheriff’s officials urged ranchers and farmers to relocate livestock or other large animals on Saturday. Large animals can be taken to the Montezuma County Fairgrounds at 30100 U.S.160 in Cortez. For more information, the sheriff’s office said, livestock owners should call (970) 759-2231 or (970) 769-0005 to arrange. 

Gold Mountain fire

Just 6% of the Gold Mountain fire has been contained. The fire has burned 34,848 acres northeast of Ouray. 

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and personnel are strengthening and securing fire containment lines around buildings while focusing much of their efforts around Cimarron Ridge and nearby communities, where fire officials said the fire has grown.

“Perimeter growth occurred mainly in the northernmost portion of the fire near Nate Creek,” incident commanders said in a statement. “The fire’s growth toward Cimarron Ridge produced significant heat. The northwest edge was burning actively but slowed when it reached the aspen stands.”

Numerous spot fires flared Friday on the east side of Cimarron Ridge. Smoke settling in the west fork of the Cimarron drainage helped keep fire behavior low until the afternoon.

“Firefighters made good progress protecting homes and other values at risk,” the statement said. “Structure protection remains a top priority.”

As winds shift Saturday, the fire may grow in the Nate Creek areas, as well as along the northern and northeast portions, fire officials said. Air support is helping fire crews on the southern end.

Saturday afternoon, fire managers began a “strategic firing operation” starting from Pinnacle Peak to Silver Jack Reservoir, firing off a containment line of burning fuel from the air. The goal is to consume burnable vegetation and dead wood at a slow, controlled pace back toward the west fork of the Cimarron River. 

The goal of the operation is to protect structures and other priorities at risk to the north of the fire, fire incident managers said in a Facebook post.

“We continue to have a presence down on the southern edge,” Jeramy Dietz, operations sections chief of Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team No. 3, said in a video update. “Up above Bridal Veil (Falls), we have a helitack crew that will be going in, monitoring some of that country over into the wilderness area, working with aircraft and (water) buckets that we have.”

Willow fire

The Willow fire has burned 5,352 acres just west of Leadville. It is 22% contained, according to the Southwest Area Complex Incident Management Team.

Fire crews are working all weekend establishing and fortifying containment lines along both the northern and northeastern edge of the fire, focusing on protecting buildings and power lines. They continue to work in the Trout Creek subdivision, the Twin Lakes area and the Pan Ark area, using heavy equipment to dig lines south of the fire’s perimeter.

“Firefighters are continuing to mop up and secure (areas near) the Leadville National Fish Hatchery and Colorado Outward Bound School areas,” the team said in a statement.

Nick Castro, an operations section chief, said that while fire officials feel confident with fire lines on the blaze’s northern borders, the western portion of the fire remains dangerously hot. 

“There’s a lot of heat up there still,” Castro said Saturday in a video update. “There’s a continuous line of fire.”

A red-flag warning remains in effect for the region, as fire officials expect weather conditions to stay warm and dry this weekend and into next week. Saturday’s temperatures were expected to reach near-record highs with no relief in sight over the next few days.

“We’re coming into a lot of red days, which is not good for fire behavior for us and the fire guys on the ground,” Castro said.