Two uncontained wildfires burning in northwestern Colorado have scorched nearly 60,000 acres, fire officials said Thursday morning, after a day of hot, dry and windy weather.
After sparking over the weekend, the Lee fire burning southwest of Meeker is now the largest wildfire this year in Colorado at 45,000 acres. The nearby Elk fire, burning to the east of Meeker, is now estimated at 14,250 acres.
Gov. Jared Polis mobilized the National Guard on Thursday as strong winds fueled the fires across parched land on the Western Slope.
“With strong winds and fast-moving flames, we’re mobilizing every available resource to protect lives and property,” Polis said in a post on X.
The Lee fire continued to make large runs Wednesday, mostly north toward Meeker, fire officials said in an update. The heightened fire activity caused a large smoke cloud that collapsed causing the fire to jump Colorado 13 and rapidly consume 100 acres before firefighting aircraft could get ahead of it.
During its big runs, the Lee fire is moving about 1 mph, fire behavior analyst Kevin Thompson said Wednesday night during a community meeting in Meeker.
“And I know that doesn’t seem very much in your car or when you’re walking, but for a fire to move that fast through that terrain, that is really, really fast,” he said.
Firefighters repositioned to protect houses and private property closer to Meeker and to try to prevent the fire from getting closer to the town, officials said. Crews are working through the night to strengthen the fire line on the north side of the fire.
The interior pockets of the Elk fire were also very active Wednesday and fire officials predict another active fire day Thursday. “Red flag weather” is expected through at least Saturday, fire officials said, warning of temperatures in the mid-80s to low-90s over the fire area and 18 mph southwest winds with gusts up to 35 mph.
Both fires were sparked by lightning over the weekend and the fires have not reached any level of containment.
“With red flag warnings and extreme weather in both fires, similar afternoon fire conditions are expected,” the Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team wrote.
“Critically dry fuels”
The monsoons that typically arrive in July didn’t come to western Colorado this year, causing fuels to dry out, Thompson said.
“It wasn’t much of a season this year. It was pretty hit and miss with rain in some areas, but overall, most of the area didn’t see a lot of moisture,” Thompson said.
The fire area has seen red flag conditions almost daily for the last six days, he said. He expects the high fire risk to continue through the weekend.
Temperatures are forecast to drop slightly in the coming days to the low 80s, but the winds are expected to persist and no precipitation is in the forecast, Thompson said.
The “critically dry fuels” combined with low humidity is posing an extreme challenge for firefighters, incident commander Casey Cheesbrough said.
“Some of the driest conditions — 2% relative humidity the other day — many of our firefighters had never seen that low of humidity on any fires in any place they have been. That’s the lowest I’ve ever seen,” he said.
There’s competition right now for national firefighting resources as fires become more severe and frequent across the country. A group of fire experts at the National Interagency Fire Center on Tuesday raised the country’s preparedness level to a 4, out of 5, indicating that national firefighting teams are near capacity and that resources need to be prioritized.
“That’s when we start to see shortages of key resources like Hotshot crews, the large helicopters that you see working the fires,” he said. “Those are being prioritized across the country all the way from California to Utah, Nevada, Arizona.”
“So far we are weighing out pretty well,” Cheesbrough said. “We are getting a lot of those resources to come to us, the aviation resources that showed up this evening when that fire was making that push toward town.”
In Moffat County near Elk Springs, the Twelve Fire grew to 4,287 acres on Thursday after sparking a day earlier, the county’s sheriff’s office said.
A shed and an outhouse were destroyed, but no homes have been lost in the fire as of Thursday afternoon.
U.S. 40 remains open, but officials are urging people to drive slowly as smoke is reducing visibility.
“Please help us out—secure your tow chains and avoid dragging anything that could cause sparks,” the sheriff’s office said.
“Our emergency resources are limited and stretched thin right now. Preventing just one fire makes a big difference.”
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