Blaze tops 200K acres
The largest wildfire in Colorado’s recorded history topped 200,000 acres Sunday, becoming the first known fire in the state to grow that large.
The blaze grew to about 317 square miles, or 203,253 acres, according to fire officials. It is about 62% contained, and firefighters were helped by lower winds and higher humidity Saturday night.
The favorable weather was expected to continue Sunday, but fire officials were still concerned about “significant fire activity” along the unsecured perimeter of the fire, according to a Sunday update.
The fire was mostly unsecured along the east and south perimeters, including a branch of fire that spread east during high winds last week. Crews were working to build containment lines along those areas Sunday, spokesman Dave Stephan said.
“The plan is to build a line all the way across the south edge of the fire while it’s not moving today, and kind of anchor it in that position,” he said.
Fire crews were working to keep the fire south of County Road 44H, west of County Road 27, north of County Road 43 and north of U. S. 34.
They’ve been mostly successful holding that perimeter, except for a 2,400acre spot fire that started Saturday about a mile east of County Road 27. That spot fire was burning near Buckskin Heights not far from Masonville. Firefighters on Sunday were focusing on completely containing that fire, Stephan said.
“Right now they have a horseshoe around that spot fire, the northwest part is still a little bit open,” he said. “They’re trying to close that off today.”
He said that fire officials don’t expect the blaze to make its way further east and into Loveland or Fort Collins, and said natural features in the area would help to slow the blaze if it did start moving that way.
“Right now there is no wind, and they’ve done a good job of holding County Road 27, so they’re not anticipating any kind of issue,” he said. “One thing we have talked about, if the fire did progress east, as you get down off the foothills, there are a lot more open areas, it’s a lot more grassy, so you don’t have all the dead timber you do at higher elevations. So that is a buffer, and you have Horsetooth Reservoir as well.”
Horsetooth Reservoir was closed Sunday because of the fire, according to the Larimer County Department of Natural Resources.
The Cameron Peak fire has surged past the secondlargest fire in the state’s recorded history, which also happened this year — the Pine Gulch fire burned about 139,000 acres north of Grand Junction. The giant wildfires across Colorado this season come amid a changing climate, with record temperatures, low relative humidity and statewide drought combining to fuel fire growth — part of a 20year cycle of aridity that’s led to more expansive wildfires, including all 10 of the largest fires in the state’s recorded history.