"It was 1:30 this afternoon when I started packing the car," said Shawn Tierney, who evacuated from Jamestown and said he heard a lot of sirens coming up the canyon. "I normally have a bag that’s ready to go anyway, like a lot of people who live in mountain communities. You’re always ready and pray you never have to, but this is one of those times where you pretty much had to leave."
Road closures along Highway 36 north of Boulder, Highway 7 between Lyons and the Peak to Peak Highway, and on Highway 34 from Estes Park prompted CDOT on Saturday afternoon to ask drivers not to take any unnecessary trips around Boulder and Larimer counties.
At the evacuation site set up to serve people fleeing the Cal-Wood fire, Red Cross volunteer Gerry Kelly said they can offer pandemic-appropriate accommodations. "What we’re offering — if there’s a true need, without alternatives — Red Cross will provide hotel rooms for a couple of nights until social services talks to the folks and comes up with a recovery plan."
About 900 homes were in the evacuation zone as of Saturday evening. Emergency managers have advised people in Lyons to be prepared to evacuate in case the fire behavior changes on Sunday.
Daniel Swain is a climate scientist with the Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
"As far as I understand, fires of this magnitude this late in the year in Colorado are historically extremely rare, and we have a number of them burning right now, including the one that ignited relatively close to Boulder earlier today."
Swain witnessed the fire spread quickly this afternoon. "Unfortunately there's not a lot that can be done to slow the spread of a very fast-moving wind-driven fire." He said under those conditions, it makes sense to evacuate even before officially being asked to do so.
(Courtesy of Ethan Linck)
Three other fires were already combining to push giant plumes of smoke along the northern Front Range. The Cameron Peak fire is still the largest. The Mullen Fire, which started in Wyoming, is slightly smaller. The East Troublesome fire, which started this week, has burned 11,239 acres west of Lake Granby.
On Saturday morning, before the Cal-Wood fire broke out, there was already significant smoke visible in the Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland areas.
The Cameron Peak fire continues to grow on the east side. It grew about 20,000 acres between Friday and Saturday mornings, and by Saturday evening it had grown to just shy of 200,000 acres. A cold front moving into the area Saturday evening, with higher humidity, brought hope the fire growth would slow down.
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New Wildfire Burns In Boulder Foothills, Adds More Dense Smoke Along Colorado's Front Range - Colorado Public Radio
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