From the Colorado Sun, October 22:
Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin, who called the fire the “worst of the worst,” said Thursday morning there was “lots of structure loss,” but didn’t have details on how many homes and businesses had burned. There were no injuries or deaths reported, but as of Thursday evening, he said there could be as many as five people unaccounted for.
“The fire got ahead of us, there is no doubt about it,” he said during a briefing midday Thursday. “We can’t control Mother Nature.”
Schroetlin said he did not “want to put fear in the community,” but urged people to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice should the fire spread amid still-dangerous conditions. He has placed the town of Granby, Hot Sulphur Springs and Parshall on pre-evacuation notice.
“Pack those bags. Collect your belongings,” he said. “I know a lot of people don’t want to leave their homes. I understand that. Please evacuate.”
The East Troublesome Fire was estimated to be around 19,000 acres in size Wednesday, grew to an extraordinary 170,000 acres in size by Thursday — driven by strong winds and burning through dry fuels — to become the second-largest wildfire in Colorado’s recorded history. The fire moved into Rocky Mountain National Park, and has burned an as-yet-undetermined number of homes and buildings. The fire is about 5% contained.
From the incident command, yesterday:
We can confirm that the fire has crossed the continental divide and continuing to move northeast towards Mt. Wuh. There are evacuation orders in place for Estes Park and more information on those evacuations can be found at Larimer.org or by calling 970-980-2500.
Along the southeastern part of the fire, near Hwy 40, firefighters have successfully completed a burn operation that has reduced the fuel between the main fire and the highway. Granby remains in a Pre-Evacuation status at this time.
Long lines of cars made their way out of the area as the fire continued to grow Thursday. Traffic out of the small town of Estes Park was crawling as hundreds tried to evacuate, according to CNN affiliate KUSA.
Families who have already fled the area have been watching their homes go up in flames on home security cameras.
The East Troublesome Fire in Colorado grew about 50,000 acres Thursday, according to the latest update from Incident
The type of growth the fire is experiencing is “really unheard of for a fire in this part of the world, in timber,” Livingston said.
“Today was a very trying day for us, as well as for a number of other fires, with the cold front passage,” Incident Commander Noel Livingston said yesterday. A cold front passage, throughout the afternoon, had pushed the fire right into the areas of most concern, he said.
Livingston said incident command has orders in for additional resources to fight the fire. He added that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
The National Interagency Fire Center notes that 60 large fires have burned more than 3.9 million acres across the country this year.
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