LAKE GEORGE (USA), June 18: High temperatures and low humidity fueled Colorado’s massive wildfire on Tuesday, putting more residents on alert to evacuate as firefighters struggled to get the blaze under control.
“It’s potentially very serious. We’re asking all the residents to be on alert and pay attention,” fire information officer Joe Colwell said.
Firefighters made progress over the weekend when humidity rose, helping to tame the flames burning about 55 miles (89 km) southwest of Denver. But the blaze blew up again on Monday, sending about 1,000 residents to safer ground. About 6,000 residents remained evacuated.
Colorado, like other Rocky Mountain states, is in the grip of a severe drought, making timber bone dry and vulnerable to lightning strikes or flying embers from fires left unattended.
Humidity stood at 5 percent, down from around 50 percent over the weekend. Temperatures were expected to be in the 90s (around 35 degrees Celsius) and winds could gust up to 30 miles (48 km) an hour, Colwell said.
The fire consumed more land late on Monday and early on Tuesday, rising to 113,000 acres (45,730 hectares) from 103,000 acres (41,700 hectares), fire information officer Ron Jablonski said. So far 25 homes have been destroyed, but the figure could be higher, he added.
‘WORSE THAN YESTERDAY’: “Today is going to be worse than yesterday,” Jablonski said. The official containment figure remained at 47 percent, but with so much smoke in the air — even in Denver — it was hard to measure acreage from the air, he said.
“But yesterday was a victory for us. All of our fire fighters came home safe,” he said.
A C-130 air tanker dispatched to battle a wildfire burning near California’s Yosemite National Park crashed on Monday, killing all three crew members.
The air tanker was dropping flame retardant as part of an effort to control an 8,000-acre (3,230-hectare) blaze that has forced 400 people out of their homes in the scenic area, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Yosemite.
Adding to firefighters’ worry over the Colorado blaze, dubbed the Hayman fire for the spot where it started in the Pike National Forest, was disappointment that it was ignited by one of their own, Terry Lynn Barton, an 18-year US Forest Service fire prevention worker.—Reuters