Fire officials in Colorado are anticipating a very long, drawn-out battle in fighting the West Fork Complex Fire, perhaps even through the end of the summer, according to one estimate. Firefighters still have the blaze at zero percent containment as of Monday morning while it continues to burn in the southwest area of the state.
According to official government Web site InciWeb, as of 10:30 a.m. Monday, the West Fork Complex Fire has grown to encompass 75,150 acres, up from approximately 70,000 acres on Sunday.
The West Fork Complex Fire is actually a triple-threat combination of three separate fires that include the Windy Pass Fire, the Papoose Fire and the West Fork Fire. The first blaze began on June 5 as the result of a lightning strike and the trio has been upgraded to a combined complex fire since then, according to 9news.com in Colorado.
Drought conditions in the area and difficulty in accessing the rapidly burning blaze are making the battle against the wildfire tough, but spruce beetles have have amplified the danger of the rapidly spreading blaze even more. Spruce beetles have killed as many as 70 percent of the trees in the affected area leading to a significantly increased amount of very dry tinder to fuel the fire. The plague of tree deaths has essentially created what fire behavior analyst Kim Foley has called a forest of "vertical kilns," Fox31 Denver reports.
Officials say that firefighters are hoping for a break in the high winds and are looking forward to the forecasted July monsoons to help fight the fire. Pete Blume, a commander with the Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Command team, says "with that much beetle kill and drought, we could have every resource in the country here and still not put in a containment line."
Until containment can be achieved, nearly 900 fire personnel are focusing their efforts on protecting the town of South Fork, Colo., the Wolf Creek ski area and homes along Highway 149 as the fire continues to approach these areas. On Monday members of the Colorado National Guard were deployed to assist the already existing population of firefighters working the blaze.
Mandatory evacuations are underway for the city of South Fork, which has 400 year-round residents and boasts hundreds of tourists in the summer season. South Fork Mayor Kenneth Brooke estimates that between 1,000 and 1,500 people have been forced from the vicinity due to evacuations.
Voluntary evacuations have been encouraged in the nearby mining town of Creede. Although the fire does not currently pose a direct threat to the Creede area, officials are concerned that the flames may eventually reach and block the roads that lead out of the area.
The Pagosa Daily Post reports that Monday marks the sixth consecutive day of Red Flag fire warnings in the area. The Red Flag warning means that weather is optimal for encouraging very extreme and active fire behavior. Monday's forecast shows winds blowing at 15-25 miles per hour with gusts of up to 55 miles per hour. Relative humidity is reportedly very low.
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