(The Cameron Peak Fire)
By Nia Bender
COLORADO – It was an intense weekend on the frontlines of Colorado’s wildfires. The Cameron Peak Fire in Larimer County has scorched well over 203,000 acres and that number is expected to rise as weather conditions aren’t looking favorable this week. More than 1500 firefighters are on the lines of fire, which happens to be by far, the largest in Colorado’s history.
More structures were lost over the weekend and damage assessment continues Monday morning. Crews have gained 62% containment. It was too cloudy for aircraft to fly with the limited visibility on Sunday, but firefighters were able to continue to make progress on several areas of the fire.
In the upper portion of The Retreat and Storm Mountain, firefighters continue mitigation work to secure structures as the fire continues backing down. Fire officials are scouting for opportunities to create a fireline from The Retreat to Storm Mountain to protect values at risk. Firefighters continued strengthening the fireline along 44H/ Buckhorn Road to prevent the fire from advancing to the north/northeast. In addition, crews continued constructing lines around a spot fire to the east near Buckskin Heights.
There are still plenty of evacuations in the area and more information can be found below.
Chief Wagner updates on #CalWoodFire and #LefthandCanyonFire. https://t.co/cEGxt68Jj6
— Boulder OEM (@BoulderOEM) October 19, 2020
On Saturday, the staff at the Cal-Wood Education Center north of Jamestown reported a fire at about noon. Firefighters throughout the area and even some of the firefighters from the Cameron Peak Fire rushed to Boulder County. In a matter of hours, 7,000 acres had burned and the fire continued to spread. The largest wildfire in Boulder County’s history was deemed as The Calwood Fire.
I spent time up off of Neva Rd. before the entire area was blocked off along Highway 36 between North Boulder and Highway 7 heading into Lyons. Numerous small aircraft were seen dropping red fire retardant onto the foothills. It was an amazing sight to watch a giant V Lat DC-10 out of Mesa, Arizona, make two passes to drop altitude in order to make a large drop in the area.
Well over 3,000 people were called on to evacuate immediately. At one point, Highway 36 and surrounding roads in the area were jammed with evacuees. One man on Neva Rd. was seen with what looked like dozens of goats in the back of his pick-up truck and in the cab of the truck. Lines of horse trailers lined the roads as people worked to evacuate their animals.
(Calwood Fire on Oct. 17th, 2020)
By Sunday night, almost 8,800 acres had burned and another fire nearby had sparked in Left Hand Canyon. More evacuations were ordered for people in the area and another 300-plus acres have burned. The Boulder County Office of Emergency Management released a list of 26-homes lost so far in the Calwood Fire. Click here for the entire list.
The Cal-Wood Education Center’s buildings, including the lodge and cabins, are not damaged. Cal-Wood is housing 30-firefighters at the cabins and lodge.
