Wildfire threatens homes near Breckenridge resort
DENVER — Hundreds of people spent another night away from their homes as firefighters scrambled to beat back a wildfire near Colorado’s Breckenridge Ski Resort and the nearby historic town.
The fire has scorched less than a quarter of a square mile of terrain but has forced the evacuation of nearly 500 homes, many of which are pricey ski properties. No houses have burned, and investigators do not know what sparked the blaze that a mountain biker reported Wednesday.
“We’re re-evaluating and evaluating our evacuation decisions,” Summit County Undersheriff Joel Cochran said at a community meeting. “This is not an easy decision. This is a complicated fire.”
It is one of several burning in Colorado and around the U.S. West.
Crews near Breckenridge dropped slurry from the air and built containment lines on the ground about 2 miles north of the resort to prevent the fire from reaching a large subdivision. Insurance companies also paid to send contracted fire engines to the area to try to protect homes.
Those who evacuated, including vacationers, were briefly allowed back to pick up items they were not able to grab before being told to leave as the fire blew up. The blaze quickly sent up a column of smoke visible from Interstate 70, Colorado’s main east-west highway, and the 19th-century Victorian buildings in the town of Breckenridge, a onetime gold-mining camp.
Residents and tourists in town have been warned to be ready to leave in case the fire spreads toward it. The base of the resort, which includes hotels, restaurants and businesses, was not evacuated.
Nebraska resident Sheila Calhorn was among those who had their vacations interrupted by the fire near the Colorado Trail, a nearly 500-mile hiking and biking route through the mountains.
“We were down in Breckenridge and we looked outside, and people were all staring into the sky, and you could see smoke just billowing up,” she told the Summit Daily News in Frisco. “This was supposed to be a stressrelieving vacation.”
A blaze in the Little Rocky Mountains of Montana grew to 13 square miles. And in Arizona, firefighters fought to prevent a nearly 40square-mile wildfire in the mountains overlooking Tucson from growing.