A lightning-sparked wildfire burning in southwestern Colorado grew significantly Thursday, forcing nearby residents to evacuate and placing an entire mountain town under pre-evacuation.
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The Elk fire grew by 2,236 acres, or 3.5 square miles, between Thursday and Friday evening. It is burning across 5,763 acres, or 9 square miles, a little more than a mile northwest of Lake City, which is home to about 400 people in the San Juan Mountains.
“It will eventually get down right to some of your backyards,” operations section chief Travis Lipp said at a community meeting at the Lake City Community School on Friday night. “We have the plans in place with equipment and supplies needed to pick that fire up when it does come down there.”
The wildfire will not come into town as a wall of flames, but flying embers may start spot fires, fire officials said.
Lipp and others urged patience and said the fire will continue burning until snow extinguishes it. Hot, dry and windy weather could cause the fire to jump in size again on Saturday, fire behavior analyst Brandon Fisher said.
“The snow needs to fly, and it needs to fly really soon,” he said.
Hinsdale County Emergency Manager Phil Graham said officials are confident that fire crews will be able to catch the fire before it hits homes and structures in Lake City.
“But that comes with a little bit of patience, as Travis said, and that the smoke’s going to be in the air and it’s going to get uncomfortably close,” Graham said.
The fire was discovered July 9 and was 39% contained as of Friday evening.
Crews have transitioned off of the fire in recent weeks as they were called to larger, more critical wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, with 52 people on the fire Friday morning.
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But Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 1 ordered a surge in resources as the Elk fire grew, doubling the response team to 104 people as of Friday night, Lipp said. Fire managers ordered 15 engines from across Colorado and an additional 20 engines through the resource request system, along with hotshot crews, dozers and water equipment.
Fire activity picked up on the western edge of the blaze in recent days as flames hit large bowls of dead and downed conifers, which caused torching and large columns of smoke, Lipp said. Although there’s nothing but wilderness to the west, winds started pushing the Elk fire southeast, burning through aspen stands and meadows toward Lake City on Thursday.
There are hiking trails near the wildfire that technically could allow fire crews to attack it directly, but the mountain terrain is rugged enough that it would be difficult or impossible to rescue an injured firefighter fast enough, Lipp said.
“If something happened, we couldn’t get them out in time to prevent a fatality,” he said.
Instead crews are using aircraft to dump water on the fire as it burns into more sparse fuel sources farther down the mountain.
Hinsdale County officials ordered mandatory evacuations for the San Juan Springs subdivision just north of town limits on Friday morning, which includes 42 structures. The evacuation zone includes San Juan Springs, Rocky Springs, Silver Springs and Eagle drives; Elk Road; and Deer Trail.
Lake City is on a pre-evacuation warning, and Hinsdale County officials issued a disaster declaration Friday to activate the county’s emergency management plan.
Anyone who feels unsafe because of the proximity of the Elk fire or smoke in the air should consider evacuating, county officials said. People should be ready to leave immediately and prepare their families, pets and livestock to evacuate. Updated evacuation information and maps are available online.
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