Firefighters battling a wildfire that broke out west of Colorado Springs within the burn scar from the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire reached 50% containment on it Wednesday afternoon.
“The only thing that’s burning now is heavy fuels that are well inside the perimeter,” U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Vidalia Vigil said. “Like dead and downed fuels, big branches, trees, stump holes. There’s expected to be some lingering smoke.”
According to a 4:30 p.m. update from the Pike and San Isabel National Forests, crews had mopped up 100 feet into the interior of the Rampart fire’s perimeter. Heavy fuels are still burning well into the interior and sending up light smoke.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for the Colorado Front Range mountain foothills and the eastern plains due to record heat, dry grass, wind and low humidity — conditions that favor fire.
About 50 firefighters were deployed on Tuesday to suppress the Rampart fire, which burned about 20 acres of grass and Ponderosa pines, 2.5 miles southeast of Woodland Park, on U.S. Forest Service land but moving toward houses in western El Paso County. The cause hasn’t been determined.
An aircraft dropped water on the flames after the fire broke out around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and, by 5:30 p.m., firefighters had placed a hose around it. U.S. Forest Service officials said Wednesday morning that seven fire trucks, two teams of ten firefighters and a hot shot crew of 20 would be at the site securing lines around the fire.
