1 killed, nearly 10K acres burned in three wildfires along Colorado’s Front Range

Aerial and ground firefighting crews responding to the Quarry Fire in Jefferson County. (Jefferson County Sheriff's Office)

Thousands of Coloradans remain evacuated from their homes as three major wildfires burn along the Front Range, and authorities say at least one person has been killed.

Human remains were found Wednesday in a home north of Lyons in the burn area of the 1,500-acre Stone Canyon Fire, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said. Five structures have been destroyed in the blaze, whose cause is unknown and which was first reported midday Tuesday.

Fire officials said early Thursday morning that the Stone Canyon Fire is now 20% contained. Areas under mandatory evacuation orders include parts of Lyons north of U.S. 36 and extend into the foothills west of Carter Lake Reservoir.

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That area overlaps with the evacuation zone for the Alexander Mountain Fire, which has burned since Monday north of the Big Thompson River west of Loveland. Officials said Thursday that the fire had grown to over 7,600 acres and is just 1% contained.

A federal incident management team dispatched by the National Interagency Fire Center assumed command of the fire as of 6 a.m. Thursday after response had previously been handled by the U.S. Forest Service and the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. An estimated 450 personnel are assigned to the fire.

Evacuation centers for those displaced by the fire are open in Loveland and Estes Park, along with a large animal evacuation center in Island Grove Regional Park in Greeley.

Quarry Fire

A third fire burning in Jefferson County on the southwest edge of the Denver metro area has prompted the evacuations of nearly 600 homes nearby. The Quarry Fire was first reported late Tuesday night and was last estimated at 341 acres in size.

No injuries or lost or damaged structures have been reported. But Mark Techmeyer, public affairs director for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, said in a press conference Thursday morning that crews have prioritized containing the blaze along Deer Creek Canyon Road to prevent what he called the “nightmare” scenario of the fire spreading further to the north.

“Deer Creek Canyon Road is the key for us,” he said. “This fire cannot jump over to the north side of Deer Creek Canyon Road. We have a whole other situation on our hands, if that happens.”

Five firefighters assigned to the fire were injured on Wednesday, Techmeyer said. Four suffered heat exhaustion and one had a seizure, but none was hospitalized. A so-called “hotshot” crew of 20 experienced wildland firefighters from Durango joined crews responding to the fire on Thursday.

Call for federal resources

Fire officials have said that aerial firefighting resources and personnel are stretched thin by the outbreak of fires in Colorado and in many other Western states amid the most active summer wildfire season in several years. More than 750,000 acres have burned in California already this year, nearly 30 times the total acreage burned at this point in 2023. At least 31 large fires are burning in Oregon, and once-in-a-century fires are also impacting Canada.

Colorado this summer recorded the third-hottest June in state history, according to the Colorado Climate Center , and multiple record high temperatures were set during a mid-July heat wave . The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that much of the northern Front Range is experiencing moderate drought conditions, and an area spanning from Jefferson County to northern Larimer County is in severe drought.

In a letter to NIFC chief Mark Hilton on Wednesday, four Colorado Democratic members of Congress said that the state has “activated all available resources to address these wildfires” and pleaded for more crews, incident management teams and aerial support as soon as possible.

“With existing wildfires and the continued high wildfire risk, the State expects to need additional resources in the coming days and weeks,” said the letter, signed by U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and Reps. Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen, who represent areas where the fires are burning. “We understand the pressures facing our wildland firefighting workforce, as wildfires rage all across the western United States and continue to threaten many of our communities. Existing resources are stretched thin to meet those demands.”

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