Colorado deployed its ramped-up wildfire investigations team Thursday as authorities confirmed the four fires that burned along the Front Range this week destroyed or damaged at least 30 buildings.
It’s the first time the state’s new team of 10 fire investigators and four trained dogs has been activated at such a large scale since state lawmakers funded the unit in 2023, said Todd Hedglin, fire investigations chief for the state.
“I’ve got investigators peppered around the state,” Hedglin said. “This is huge.”
The investigators are looking into possible points of origin and whether people played a role in igniting the flames that have burned across nearly 10,000 acres in the mountain foothills. The team is run by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.
This week’s wildfires have killed one person, damaged or destroyed at least 30 buildings, prompted the evacuation of thousands of people and triggered Gov. Jared Polis to deploy the Colorado National Guard.
Three major fires — the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, the Alexander Mountain fire in Larimer County, the Stone Canyon fire in Boulder and Larimer counties — began this week and grew rapidly, fueled by hot, dry weather and parched conditions on the ground. A fourth, the Lake Shore fire in Boulder County, burned only a few acres before it was extinguished Thursday morning.
Four Colorado lawmakers on Thursday asked the National Interagency Fire Center to send more fire resources to the state.
U.S. Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Joe Neguse and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper asked the fire center to help Colorado get more boots on the ground in the form of hand crews, fire engines, planes and incident management teams.
“We understand the pressures facing our wildland firefighting workforce,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the fire center.
“We continue to face extreme heat and drought conditions that may exacerbate existing fires and increase the risk of additional wildfires. Time is of the essence to save lives and homes.”
Two dozen buildings burned
Twenty-four of the 30 buildings impacted by the fires were caught in the Alexander Mountain fire, the largest of the blazes. The fire has burned across more than 8,000 acres of national forest and private land near Loveland and is 5% contained.
Larimer County officials were able to enter several neighborhoods Thursday and confirmed at least two dozen structures in the Palisade Mountain Drive and Snow Top Drive areas were damaged or destroyed by the fire.
The buildings are believed to be a combination of homes and outbuildings, sheriff’s officials said in a news release. Damage assessment teams will start assessing the properties Friday morning, if fire behavior allows, and people impacted by the fire will be contacted by the sheriff’s office.
The fire was most active to the north Thursday, and fire officials expect it will reach the Cameron Peak burn scar but not burn too far into the area, said Jayson Coil, operations section chief for southwest area incident management team 1.
Crews are focusing on protecting the communities of Cedar Park and Storm Mountain along with homes and critical infrastructure along U.S. 34, including an above-ground fiber-optic line adjacent to the north side of the highway, which provides 911 and phone service to Estes Park with “limited redundancy,” Coil said.
At an emergency shelter set up in Foundations Church in Loveland, Jennifer Coll was optimistic Thursday that her home on Wild Lane would make it through the blaze unscathed. She has evacuated four times during 31 years in the house, and it’s never been caught in a flood or fire.
“I think we’re in a magic zone, a blessed zone,” she said, sitting in a camping chair under a shady canopy beside her family’s little red camper, dubbed Ruby.
When a sheriff’s deputy knocked on her door Tuesday and ordered she and her husband to evacuate, they grabbed the birth certificates, passports, the deed to the house.
They took nothing sentimental, because there was too much to bring.
Fire investigations
To the south of the Alexander Mountain fire, firefighters made progress against the 1,553-acre Stone Canyon fire, reaching 30% containment by Thursday night. That blaze, burning near Lyons in Boulder County, has injured at least four firefighters and damaged at least five homes.
County officials confirmed Thursday night that one person was killed in the fire after human remains were found in a burned building in the 2600 block of Eagle Ridge Road. The person’s name will be released by the coroner’s office.
Fire investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives headed to Lyons on Thursday to examine whether the Stone Canyon fire may have been human-caused. A trained yellow Lab named Ash was helping investigators there by sniffing for hydrocarbons around burned structures at the top of Stone Canyon. The federal agency is assisting the sheriff’s office, which on Wednesday called for anyone with information on the fire’s origin to reach out to law enforcement.
No details were released on the investigation there, or into any of the other fires, although ATF investigators on Thursday worked in the area of Eagle Ridge. That ridge area is where Stone Canyon resident Collin Schaafsma saw the fire start Tuesday afternoon.
“I saw the smoke… two minutes later I saw flames… It was a little breezy,” he said, looking up at the now-blackened ridge where the fire began. “It happened fast.”
When he saw the flames, he didn’t wait. He grabbed his dog and bolted toward town.
“I knew there was only one way out,” he said.
Quarry and Lake Shore fires
Humid overnight conditions helped slow the spread of the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, which has burned 450 acres in county open space and was 0% contained Thursday.
Firefighters there aimed to keep the blaze contained on the south side of Deer Creek Canyon Road, away from homes.
“Deer Creek Canyon Road is the key for us,” sheriff’s spokesperson Mark Techmeyer said in a Thursday briefing. “If we lose control of the fire and it jumps over to the north side, that would be our nightmare.”
Three helicopters and two planes doused the flames with fire retardant and water while ground crews from more than a dozen fire agencies worked to cut off the fire’s path Thursday.
Although those three fires had little containment, Boulder County’s Lake Shore fire burned just 6 acres before it was extinguished, although one building was destroyed and another damaged, fire officials said.
Evacuation orders for the Lake Shore fire were lifted early Thursday and residents were allowed to return home.