Hopes up as savage Colo. fire slows

Colorado officials said Sunday that wildfires have burned about 21,000 acres in five areas of the state, but firefighters are making major strides in containing the largest fire near Colorado Springs.

The fire — northeast of Colorado Springs in the Black Forest — is 65% contained, incident commander Rich Harvey said.

Residents whose homes were spared by the fire and are no longer threatened returned home Sunday.

“Firefighters have made significant progress and gotten help from the weather,” El Paso County spokesman Dave Rose said. “We had a little rain — one- tenth of an inch — Saturday.”

The fire burned 15,500 acres and destroyed 482 homes east of Interstate 25, said Micki Trost, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

A man and a woman were found dead Thursday in a garage of a suburban home, and a firefighter suffered minor injuries, Rose said. Names of the deceased have not been released.

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said those reported missing “have been accounted for.”

The fire, which came within about 2 miles of the U. S. Air Force Academy, apparently started on a street populated with homes, Rose said. Local officials have ruled out lightning as a cause and are investigating whether it was accidentally or deliberately started, he said.

Authorities have received 120 phone calls and e- mails about the cause of the fire and turned 14 over to law enforcement for further investigation, Rose said.

After touring the affected areas Saturday, Maketa said the blaze’s wide destruction appeared “as if a nuclear bomb had gone off. ... That is the level of incineration and destruction that took place in some areas.”

In terms of destruction, the wildfire “has blown away” the destruction caused last year by a wildfire in nearby Waldo Canyon, which burned 347 homes and killed two people, said El Paso County Deputy Commissioner Monnie Gore.

Gore said about 744 families have sought disaster assistance.

“People are just devastated, and they are trying to pick up the pieces,” he said.