COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO, June 15: Rain and calmer winds helped firefighters tame a deadly wildfire ranked as Colorado’s most destructive on record as authorities reported making significant headway in curtailing a blaze that has destroyed nearly 420 homes outside Colorado Springs.
The fire has charred roughly 6,215 hectares of rolling, wooded terrain northeast of Colorado’s second-largest city since it started on Tuesday, killing two people and forcing some 38,000 to flee their homes.
A firefighting force estimated to include some 800 personnel – along with air tankers and water-dropping helicopters – had carved containment lines around 30 per cent of the blaze’s perimeter, up from 5 per cent on Thursday.
Fire managers expect it will take nearly another week to fully corral the blaze, but the outlook improved as rain showers moved into the area at midday following an encouraging night on the fire lines that El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa called a “turning point.”
Overcast skies, cooler temperatures and the absence of strong, erratic winds that stoked the blaze during its first three days also were cited as factors in the subsiding fire.
“We had a real good day without wind,” Maketa told a news conference as he announced that some evacuated areas were being reopened to residents. “The rain made a tremendous impact.
“If you look at it as a fight, we got our tails kicked for a couple of days … And I think today we delivered some blows.”
While officials cautioned that conditions could change again for the worse, Rich Harvey of the U.S. Forest Service said there was “no significant progress by the fire in any direction today.”
Aerial photos of devastated areas showed large swaths of obliterated neighborhoods with bare, blackened trees and houses reduced to cinders and rubble.
Governor John Hickenlooper said after touring the fire zone yesterday that he was struck by the “the randomness” of the destruction.
“There are places where few trees were left alone and the homes were burned to the ground. And then areas where the trees burned and the houses were fine,” he said.
The bulk of the destroyed homes were lost in the first 24 hours of the fire, Maketa said. The remains of two people killed on Tuesday night, in the midst of an evacuation attempt as flames closed in, were pulled from the wreckage of their garage on Thursday.
(agencies)
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