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Colorado deployed its expanded wildfire investigation team Thursday as authorities confirmed that the four fires burning along the Front Range this week destroyed or damaged at least 30 buildings.
It’s the first time the new team of 10 fire investigators and four trained dogs has been activated on such a large scale since state lawmakers funded the unit in 2023, said Todd Hedglin, the state’s fire investigation chief.
“I have investigators spread out all over the state,” Hedglin said. “This is huge.”
The researchers are investigating possible points of origin and whether humans played a role in igniting the flames that have burned across nearly 10,000 hectares in the mountain foothills. The team is led by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.
This week’s wildfires have killed one person, damaged or destroyed at least 30 buildings, prompted the evacuation of thousands of people and prompted Gov. Jared Polis to deploy the Colorado National Guard.
Three major fires — the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, the Alexander Mountain fire in Larimer County, the Stone Canyon fire in Boulder and Larimer counties — started this week and grew quickly, fueled by hot, dry weather and parched conditions. the ground. A fourth, the Lake Shore fire in Boulder County, burned just a few acres before it was extinguished Thursday morning.
Four Colorado lawmakers on Thursday asked the National Interagency Fire Center to send more fire resources to the state.
U.S. Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Joe Neguse and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper asked the fire center to help Colorado get more ground personnel in the form of hand crews, fire engines, aircraft and incident management teams.
“We understand the pressures our wildfire response personnel face,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to the fire center.
“We continue to face extreme heat and drought that could worsen existing fires and increase the risk of additional wildfires. Time is of the essence to save lives and homes.”
Two dozen buildings burned down
Twenty-four of the thirty buildings affected by the fires were affected by the Alexander Mountain fire, the largest of the fires. The fire has spread to more than 20,000 acres of national forest and private land near Loveland and is 5% contained.
Larimer County officials were able to get into several neighborhoods Thursday and confirmed that at least 20 buildings in the Palisade Mountain Drive and Snow Top Drive areas were damaged or destroyed by the fire.
The buildings are believed to be a combination of homes and outbuildings, sheriff’s officials said in a news release. Damage assessment teams will begin assessing the properties Friday morning, fire behavior permitting, and people affected by the fire will be contacted by the sheriff’s office.
The fire was most active in the north on Thursday and fire officials expect the fire to reach the Cameron Peak burn scar but not burn too far into the area, said Jayson Coil, chief of operations for incident management team 1 in the southwest area .
Crews are focusing on protecting the communities of Cedar Park and Storm Mountain, along with homes and critical infrastructure along US 34, including an overhead fiber optic line adjacent to the north side of the highway, which provides 911 and telephone service to Estes Park. with “limited redundancy,” Coil said.
At an emergency shelter at Foundations Church in Loveland Thursday, Jennifer Coll was optimistic her Wild Lane home would survive the fire unscathed. She has been evacuated from the house four times over 31 years, and it has never been caught in a flood or fire.
“I think we’re in a magical zone, a blessed zone,” she said, sitting in a camp chair under a shaded canopy next to her family’s small red camper, named Ruby.
When a deputy knocked on her door Tuesday and ordered her and her husband to evacuate, they grabbed the home’s birth certificates, passports and deed.
They didn’t take anything sentimental with them because there was too much to take with them.
Investigate fire
South of the Alexander Mountain fire, firefighters made progress on the 1,553-acre Stone Canyon fire, reaching 30% containment Thursday evening. That fire, which burned near Lyons in Boulder County, injured at least four firefighters and damaged at least five homes.
County officials confirmed Thursday evening that one person died in the fire after human remains were found in a burned building in the 2600 block of Eagle Ridge Road. The person’s name will be released by the coroner’s office.
Fire investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives headed to Lyons Thursday to investigate whether the Stone Canyon fire may have been human-caused. A trained yellow lab named Ash helped researchers there to sniff for hydrocarbons around burned buildings at the top of Stone Canyon. The federal agency is assisting the sheriff’s office, which on Wednesday urged anyone with information about the origin of the fire to contact police.
No details have been released about the investigation there, or any of the other fires, although ATF investigators were working in the Eagle Ridge area Thursday. That ridge area is where Stone Canyon resident Collin Schaafsma saw the fire start Tuesday afternoon.
“I saw the smoke… two minutes later I saw flames… It was a little windy,” he said, looking up at the now blackened ridge where the fire started. “It happened quickly.”
When he saw the flames, he didn’t wait. He grabbed his dog and ran towards the city.
“I knew there was only one way out,” he said.
Quarry and Lake Shore fires
Damp overnight conditions helped slow the spread of the Jefferson County Quarry Fire, which has burned 1,000 acres of open space in the county and was 0% contained as of Thursday.
Firefighters there attempted to contain the fire on the south side of Deer Creek Canyon Road, away from homes.
“Deer Creek Canyon Road is key for us,” sheriff’s spokesman Mark Techmeyer said during a briefing Thursday. “If we lose control of the fire and it spreads to the north side, that would be our nightmare.”
Three helicopters and two planes extinguished the flames with fire retardant and water as ground crews from more than a dozen fire departments worked Thursday to cut off the blaze’s path.
While these three fires had little control, the Lake Shore fire in Boulder County burned only 15 acres before being extinguished, although one building was destroyed and another damaged, fire officials said.
Evacuation orders for the Lake Shore fire were lifted early Thursday and residents were allowed to return home.