Firefighters struggling
DENVER: Colorado firefighters were struggling yesterday to get ahead of the state’s largest wildfire on record, which had grown markedly in recent days, as smoke drifted over the population corridor of the droughtstricken state.
New fires continue to erupt, including a 356ha blaze in the mountains above Boulder that incinerated at least 26 homes, the sheriff’s office said.
The latest figures from the US Drought Monitor showed the entire state of Colorado was at some level of drought and officials said this was contributing to the outbreak of wildfires.
‘‘It’s extremely late; it should be snowing by now,’’ spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Centre Larry Helmerick said.
There had been few lightning strikes in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, so it was believed most of the fires were caused by humans, Helmerick said.
Of the 12,000 wildland firefighters in the United States, more than 3000 are battling blazes in Colorado and Wyoming, Helmerick said.
The largest blaze in Colorado, the Cameron Peak Fire, has scorched 82,407ha in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests since it ignited in midAugust and was 62% contained, according to InciWeb, a wildfire tracking site.
Wildfire managers estimate more than 50 structures have been destroyed in the Cameron Peak blaze, another 50,000 are threatened and almost 13,000 people have been evacuated. — Reuters