Three homes burn near Basalt

Charges may be upgraded to felonies for two suspected of starting the blaze.

The Lake Christine Fire near Basalt destroyed three homes during a “prolific ember shower” overnight Wednesday into Thursday and grew to 4,900 acres, authorities said.

Two of the residences that burned were in El Jebel, Northern Rockies incident commander Roger Staats said. The third was a frame house on Missouri Heights. There have been no injuries to firefighters or members of the public.

Staats credited local firefighters for preventing more structures from burning.

“They worked very diligently, worked very hard and probably saved several hundred homes,” Staats said.

The fire was 0 percent contained Thursday, Staats added. About 500 homes have been evacuated, although that number could be higher because of the frenetic pace of operations Thursday. An unknown number of people have been displaced.

There are about 200 local and federal firefighters at the scene. That will swell to 300 by Friday. Federal firefighters include Hot Shot crews, hand crews and engines.

Gov. John Hickenlooper plans to visit the area Friday morning. After visiting the Lake Christine fire area, he will go to the Spring Creek fire near La Veta. That fire has surpassed 100,000 acres.

“The Lake Christine fire grew significantly on July 4 due to erratic outflow winds, extremely dry fuels and single-digit relative humidity,” the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said.

The fire grew so much Wednesday night that it doubled in size by Thursday morning. It had burned nearly 2,700 acres by 7 p.m. Wednesday night. It appeared firefighters would catch a break as the sun was setting because the wind calmed down and the fire’s march slowed.

In addition to burning onto private lands in the El Jebel and Basalt areas, the fire has burned state lands in the Basalt State Wildlife Area, Bureau of Land Management holdings and national forest.

The Vail Daily reported Thursday that two suspects from El Jebel likely will face felony charges for allegedly sparking the fire Tuesday afternoon at a shooting range near Basalt.

For now, Richard Karl Miller, 23, and Allison Sarah Marcus, 22, face charges of fourth-degree arson, which is a misdemeanor.

However, their charges likely will be increased to felony charges for recklessly starting a fire and endangering a person, because an inhabited dwelling burned, 5th Judicial District Attorney Bruce Brown said Thursday.