Thousands of Colorado residents were issued evacuation orders over the weekend as wildfires again swept the Boulder area, just months after blazes destroyed almost entire neighbourhoods less than 20 miles from Denver.
Nearly 20,000 people were told to leave their homes on Saturday, but most of the orders were lifted later that night. As of Sunday afternoon, the fire was 35 percent contained and only 1,629 people remained under an evacuation order.
The fire was affecting 189 acres on Sunday, according to the Boulder Office of Emergency Management.
No injuries or structural damages were reported as more than 100 firefighters continued to contain the blaze, said Mike Smith, the incident commander for the City of Boulder Fire Rescue.
He’d also been in charge as the Marshall Fire devastated the region around New Year’s but said teams had learned from that fast-moving blaze - calling this weekend’s incident and January’s “two different animals.”
“One of the things we learned from the Marshall Fire was how to rapidly escalate and integrate multiple agencies and get them to work together,” he said. “And I think we had a much more seamless” process this time.
“It’s a little bit of apples and oranges” when comparing the fires, he said, “just because of the wind speed and location.”
The latest fire originated near the US. National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Mr Smith said authorities were investigating the cause and exact location.
“The intensity of this fire, in a few places, was pretty high, but for the most part this is a pretty low-intensity fire,” he said.
Two fixed-wing aircraft and a helicopter continued to aid efforts on Sunday, he said, adding that crews from across the front range were working to “corral” the fire towards rocks and snow - both major assets.
The area was still reeling from wildfires that broke out on 30 December and burned for two days, scorching more than 6,000 acres and destroying more than 1,000 buildings.
The cause of that fire - the most destructive in state history - also remains under investigation.
