Firefighters battling three wildfires along Colorado’s Front Range continued to make significant gains in containment Sunday as more mandatory evacuation orders were lifted in Larimer, Boulder and Jefferson counties.
The Alexander Mountain, Stone Canyon and Quarry fires have burned nearly 40,000 acres over the past week, forced thousands of people to evacuate, damaged or destroyed 51 buildings and killed one person.
But fire officials on Sunday spoke optimistically about the firefighting efforts and the days ahead.
The Stone Canyon fire north of Lyons reached 100% containment Sunday evening, and Boulder County officials have lifted all evacuation orders for people living near the 1,557-acre fire.
The fire, which killed one person and destroyed five homes since it started Tuesday, is being investigated as arson.
Containment of the 472-acre Quarry Fire burning near Deer Creek Canyon increased to 35% on Sunday, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mark Techmeyer said during an afternoon briefing.
The blaze, which forced nearly 600 homes to evacuate after it started late Tuesday night, has not destroyed any buildings.
Firefighters are focused on proactively burning along the western edge of the fire to increase containment, Techmeyer said. As part of that effort, there will be planned power outages in the mandatory evacuation area on Monday.
Scattered showers on Sunday had no impact on the fire, but did provide a much-needed morale boost for the 190 firefighters on scene, Techmeyer said. Most of the fire crews are volunteers, he said.
“We’re very happy with where we are,” Techmeyer said. “It was a completely different situation on Wednesday and Thursday. Everything has turned out in our favor and we are going to get this done.”
Techmeyer has not released any further details about the investigation into the arson.
“I can’t share anything, but we are working on it,” he said. “We want this person as much as anyone.”
Jefferson County officials hope the remaining mandatory evacuations will be lifted in the coming days, Techmeyer said.
More than 500 firefighters battling the Alexander Mountain fire, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Loveland, achieved 54% containment of the 9,668-acre blaze as of Sunday afternoon, state and federal officials said in a briefing.
Damage assessment teams completed their survey of burned areas this weekend and found 26 homes and 21 outbuildings destroyed, Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen said during the briefing. Four homes suffered minor damage in the fire.
It’s possible there are more buildings damaged or destroyed that county officials don’t yet know about, Feyen said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Search teams this weekend found signs of human activity and multiple lightning strikes where the fire started, Feyen said.
Larimer County officials lifted more mandatory evacuation orders Sunday morning and will meet with people at evacuation centers to verify addresses and hand out login information so residents can return to their neighborhoods this week.
US 34 will likely remain closed for another week so utilities can repair infrastructure, Feyen said.
More than a thousand contacts are still in mandatory evacuation status, Feyen said. Households often have multiple contacts.
The Alexander Mountain fire has been contained to its eastern and southern edges, and firefighters attributed the gains in containment to good firefighter decisions and an influx of resources.
“We asked for the resources, it took a while to get there, but because of the threat and because of the values surrounding this fire, we were able to get what we needed,” said Carl Schwope, Southwest Area 1 incident commander.
“Right now we’re in a good place in terms of resources and that’s why you see the progress you see: a lot of good people working hard,” he added.
Some resources will likely be released in the coming days to respond to more critical fires, Schwope said.
Crews battling wildfires on Colorado’s Western Slope also saw progress in containment this weekend, with the 193-acre Currant Creek fire burning near Cedaredge and Delta County’s Grand Mesa fully contained Saturday.
The Bucktail fire, which spanned 3,515 acres northeast of Nucla in Montrose County, was 5% contained as of Sunday afternoon, according to fire officials.
No structures are threatened and no evacuations are in effect, although the fire has “demonstrated a very high spread potential and is exhibiting active to extreme fire behavior,” fire officials said in an update.