Colorado Front Range firefighters contained three wildfires in the metro Denver and Fort Collins areas Monday while the 403 fire in mountain forests and meadows to the west expanded across 1,450 acres.
Officials were monitoring a fire in Colorado Springs, but evacuations tied to that blaze had been lifted.
However, dry conditions and high winds threatened to drive new fires. The National Weather Service on Monday issued Red Flag fire danger warnings, effective through Monday night, and local fire departments from Fort Collins to Pueblo urged caution and prohibited outdoor burning and activities that generate sparks. Cooler weather, with possible rain, was expected Monday night and Tuesday.
U.S. Forest Service officials deployed to Lake George, west of Colorado Springs, were coordinating efforts to suppress the 1,450-acre 403 Fire, which broke out Friday and has been burning in Park and Teller counties, threatening homes. While wind eased Monday morning, the feds sent out helicopters lugging buckets of water. The pilots dropped the water on smoke and flames, said Lt. Jen Plutt, Park County’s spokeswoman at the scene.
Evacuated residents in nearby Park County and Teller County subdivisions, southwest of the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument were allowed to return to their homes — on the condition they’d be ready to evacuate again on short notice if necessary.
Firefighting ground crews “are doing a lot of back-burning,” Plutt said, referring to the technique of deliberately igniting fires to clear vegetation where wildfires are moving, denying fuel for flames. That gives firefighters better access to snuff hotspots.
“That’s where the increased acreage is,” she said. “Hopefully if we can get through today, it’s going to be looking good.”
Inside metro Denver, West Metro Fire Protection District officials said they’d fully contained the Hogback fire that burned 44 acres on the southwest side of the city, south of Interstate 70, west of C-470 and north of Alameda Avenue.
The Bear fire that burned about 8 acres west of metro Denver in Golden Gate Canyon is now 100% contained, Jefferson County officials said Monday afternoon.
And the Stove Prairie wildfire that burned 33 acres in Poudre Canyon west of Fort Collins has also been 100% contained, according to U.S. Forest Service.
Just east of Colorado Springs, Cimarron Hills Fire Department officials on Sunday evening lifted evacuation orders for the residents of 30 homes on Preble Drive and Boreal Drive after firefighters largely doused flames burning dry grass. By Monday afternoon, the fire was 100% contained and entirely out.
That fire burned 5.4 acres, threatening a new subdivision to the east of the Cimarron Hills special district in unincorporated El Paso County, fire department spokeswoman Virpi Mattson said Monday.
The authorities in each area said the ignitions of all of these fires were still under investigation.
