Colorado wildfire rages, hundreds forced to leave

Colorado, USA: Hot weather was expected to stoke an unchecked wildfire in southern Colorado Tuesday that forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

The blaze, dubbed the 416 Fire, spread across some 2,400 acres early Tuesday near Durango, Colorado, where the temperature was expected to reach into the high 80s.

The fire, which began on Friday, was just 10 per cent contained on yesterday morning, as about 825 homes remained under evacuation, officials said.

“In the coming days the fire is expected to burn actively,” the US Forest Service said in an alert.

“Firefighters will continue building defensible spaces around homes and structures.”

About 250 miles to southeast, 1,110 residents of Cimarron, New Mexico were allowed back into their homes after showers on Sunday helped quell part of a separate blaze, the Ute Park Fire, which burned 36,000 acres of drought-parched grassland and timber since erupting on Thursday.

Cimarron, a frontier-style town, lies about 140 miles northeast of Albuquerque, the state’s largest city. By early Tuesday, fire crews had managed to carve containment lines around 25 per cent of the blaze, up from zero containment on Sunday morning.

About 75 people from the small nearby community of Ute Park, near the Colorado border, remained under a mandatory evacuation on Monday, said Judith Dyess, spokeswoman for the multi-agency Southwest Incident Management Team managing the blaze.

The causes of both fires were unknown and under investigation.

No injuries or property losses were reported from either.

“Critical fire weather and smoky conditions are expected to return in the coming days as a high pressure system is building from the south,” fire officials said in an alert regarding the New Mexico fire.