Winds fan blaze, evacuations ordered

Winds fanned the Cameron Peak Fire on Sunday, causing officials to order new evacuations and to pull firefighters away from the fire perimeter to a safer area.

About 3:30 p.m., fire officials posted on a Facebook page dedicated to providing fire information that “gusty winds from the southwest caused the fire to become very active … on the northwest perimeter.”

The fire grew 1,561 acres on Sunday moving to the east on the north section of the fire known as “the thumb” because of its shape on the map. Here the fire crossed a barrier made by firefighters to stop the blaze, known as the Killpecker line, moving about a mile to the north side of South Bald Mountain, Cory Carlson, planning operations trainee, explained in a recorded briefing.

“We were able to get large air tankers brought in to help us,” Dave Gesser, incident commander, also said in the recorded briefing.

“We’ve talked quite a bit about we couldn’t use the air tankers because of the heavy terrain, but as the fire moved to the east, we were able to bring in those tankers because we were getting into more favorable conditions.”

This was the sole portion of the fire with major activity reported on Sunday, an area that Carlson referred to as “our problem child.”

When the fire activity grew Sunday afternoon, mandatory evacuations were ordered for the Red Feather Lakes and Crystal Lakes areas for all residents and businesses, warning people to leave as quickly as possible due to “immediate and imminent danger.” This included the Manhattan Road down to Colo. 14 and the Shambhala Center, according to information from nocoalerts.org, the site used to notify the community of evacuations.

Voluntary evacuations, too, were ordered for the Glacier View filings, including the Lady Moon and Magic Sky Ranch areas.

And the American Red Cross set up an evacuation center at Cache La Poudre Middle School in Laporte.

When the fire moved to the east, fire officials pulled crews back from the direct perimeter at “the thumb” to both the Deadman and Manhattan Roads, the location of secondary fire breaks created for this type of situation and considered a safe zone, according to information from fire officials.

Extra firefighters were to be stationed there overnight Sunday in case the fire again picks back up and makes a run toward the evacuated neighborhoods, Carlson said.

While fire crews remained working on the ground to battle the fire that has been burning since Aug. 13, the team also used helicopters and tanker planes on Sunday. A large helicopter, five large air tankers and four small tankers were dropping both water and fire retardant “to try to slow down the fire spread,” according to information posted by the fire team.

Just after 7 p.m., the fire activity slowed, Carlson reported in his evening briefing.

“As the sun goes down, as the (relative humidity) is starting to go up, as the winds decrease, the fire has been moderated,” Carlson said.

The fire remains at 15% contained with full containment expected Oct. 31.