A series of wildfires burning along the Front Range foothills killed one person, damaged or destroyed at least 30 buildings, caused the governor to activate the Colorado National Guard and cloaked the sweltering Denver metro in a heavy cloud of smoke.
Four fires, all sparked along the Front Range since Monday have burned across more than 10,000 acres as of Thursday evening and prompted the evacuation of thousands of people.
Fire crews in Boulder County extinguished the small, multi-acre Lake Shore fire on Thursday, but another wildfire sparked in western Colorado — near Nucla — just hours later.
All four major fires currently burning — the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, the Alexander Mountain fire in Larimer County, the Stone Canyon fire in Boulder and Larimer counties and the Bucktail fire in Montrose County — began this week and grew rapidly, fueled by hot, dry weather and arid conditions on the ground.
