A 300-foot-high tsunami of wildfire swept over a subdivision overnight turning an untold number of homes into cinders and making unprecedented acreage gains in the middle of the night when wildfires are normally docile, authorities say.
“It was a perfect fire storm. This is a national disaster at this time,” said Ben Brack, fire spokesman of the racing Spring Creek fire now burning in three southern Colorado counties. “You can imagine standing in front of a tsunami or tornado and trying to stop it from destroying homes. A human response is ineffective.”
Since the fire was ignited by a man cooking in a fire pit on June 27, wind currents out of the southwest have been mostly pushing the north end of the 100,000-acre-plus wildfire in a northeasterly direction. But a cold front swept in overnight turning the fire 180 degrees. It was a good thing for homes on the eastern flank, but an absolutely devastating turn of events for neighborhoods and pine forests on the western flank, Brack said.
With wind gusts of 35 mph, the fast-moving blaze defied measurement, Brack said. Officials say the total number of damaged homes stands at 119 and the number of demolished homes is 132, although authorities know those figures are a small percentage of the affected homes. Dangerous conditions have made it too difficult for county officials to go into neighborhoods and count how many homes have been damaged or destroyed. Tallies are expected to rise significantly.
Officially, the fire swept over an additional 15,000 to 20,000 acres at night, when wildfires normally lay down as temperatures drop.
“We’re seeing unprecedented fire behavior that pushed this fire through the night. Because the fire has been moving so fast we don’t know exactly know how big it has become,” Brack said.
The thermodynamics of this historic wildfire demand unusual tactics by firefighters. Crews have bulldozed trenches around subdivisions and homes, installed sprinkling systems and back-burned brush to create extremely wide fire breaks. But the blaze remains only 5 percent contained.
The wildfire rained a shower of embers on the Paradise Acres subdivision west of Walsenburg after a platoon of firefighters spent days of heavy labor trying to protect the community using scrapers, fire retardant drops and tree and bush clearance.
“We’re trying to fight a flood of fire,” he said. “You can only imagine the amount of energy in this wildfire that is sending up plumes of smoke that resemble thunderheads.”
Firefighters have taken the approach of following in the wake of the fire and putting out house fires as it moves ahead, he said.
Having described the most devastating night of the 8-day-old wildfire, Brack found reason to be optimistic: Not one person has been hurt or killed by the fire.
“We’re winning. We’re getting people out of the way. Then we’re looking at recovery,” Brack said.
Wildfires in Colorado and the U.S.
The map shows active wildfire locations and all 2018 fire perimeters*. The map defaults to Colorado; to see all wildfires, click “U.S.” in the view area. Click the map layers icon in the top right corner of the map to change map backgrounds and to toggle active and contained fires, and perimeters. Click a marker or perimeter for details. To view the full map and a table of all 2018 wildfires, click here.
*Data comes from two sources, GeoMAC and InciWeb, and could contain inconsistencies. Map by Kevin Hamm and Daniel J. Schneider.
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