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DENVER - Sparked by lightning and fanned by erratic winds, a wildfire in western Colorado has spread to within a half mile of a 400-home subdivision, forcing evacuations, fire officials said today.
Residents of 30 houses in the path of the 141-hectare blaze near Glenwood Springs, about 250km west of Denver, have been ordered to leave and the remaining residents have been warned to prepare for evacuation, said Larry Helmerick of the Rocky Mountain Co-ordination Centre.
"The fire is crowning and torching and making a run today," Helmerick said. "It is real active."
Helmerick said high temperatures, low humidity and gusting winds are hampering firefighting efforts.
About 200 firefighters are on scene, with air tankers and helicopters making fire retardant and water drops. The fire is about 15 per cent contained.
A second, larger fire has blackened 404ha of federal land in a remote area about 80km east of the Utah border, said Mel Lloyd, spokeswoman for the US Bureau of Land Management. Seventy-five firefighters are battling that fire from the ground and air.
Lloyd said weather would dictate how much progress was made on Tuesday but conditions so far have not been favourable, Lloyd said. "The weather forecast calls for high winds and 100-degree temperatures," she said.
Dry lightning strikes from a storm that swept through tinder-dry western Colorado Sunday night ignited all the fires, Lloyd said.
- REUTERS
