More than 500 homes and a large hotel were engulfed in flames on Thursday in recent devastating flames in the US West. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pele warned there could be casualties.
Wildfires are the most recent bout of extreme weather as climate change and La Nia weather patterns leave the US West much warmer and drier.
Most regions, including Colorado, are vulnerable to drought. More than 2.5 million acres have burned this year in California alone. The area around Boulder, a college town northwest of Denver, hasn’t received significant rain or snow for months.
“We saw a line of fire at least a mile long,” Carmen Porter, who evacuated her home in Boulder County near Louisville, said by telephone. “Houses in the subdivision to the south, across the street, definitely burned down.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who lives in Boulder, declared a state of emergency as thousands left the communities of Superior and Louisville, blocking roads and highways. Residents in other parts of Boulder County were warned that they may also need to leave.
Colorado’s wildfire season typically ends in autumn, but the region is so dry and devoid of snow that it remains vulnerable to flames. They come just weeks after unseasonably warm weather helped lead to deadly tornadoes in Kentucky and a rare and violent wave of thunder and wind storms known as a derecho in Nebraska and Kansas.
The area that burned down is at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, an area known as the Front Range. Much of the area is prairie, and many of the houses that were destroyed were recently built with timber frames.
The National Weather Service office in Boulder said on Twitter that after nightfall in Colorado, the strong winds subsided, although the skies were orange with flames and the scorching heat was detected by a weather satellite 22,000 miles above the planet. Snowfall is forecast on Friday, which will bring some relief to the area. Local officials scheduled a media briefing at 10 a.m. local time.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter Thursday that the grass fire was caused by collapsed power lines and transformers. A spokesman for the utility serving the area, Xcel Energy Inc., said the company was yet to access its equipment and did not immediately comment on the cause of the fire.
“We are working with the authorities,” spokesman Michel Aguayo said in a brief interview.
Shares of Xcel fell up to 1.7% in New York.
Wind gusts from the Rocky Mountains reached as high as 110 miles (177 kph) per hour, prompting the weather service to issue an alert on Twitter saying, “If you’re in Louisville, this is a life-threatening situation.” . leave now!”
“We’re literally watching this burn,” Superior Mayor Clint Folsom, quoted by the Denver Post, said. “It’s devastating to our people.”
According to an emailed statement, the governor called the fires “unprecedented,” saying they “destroyed hundreds of homes, businesses and displaced thousands.” Scattered flames can be seen from a flight departing Denver International Airport.
The Denver Gazette reported that the primary fire, the Marshall fire, had burned about 1,600 acres by 5 p.m. About 15,000 homes and businesses across the state, mostly in Boulder County, were without power as of 8:37 a.m. Friday, according to Poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outages. It is down from more than 47,000 late Thursday.
Disaster Services opened evacuation centers in Boulder County. A special site to shelter horses and other large animals was filled in at the county fairgrounds, and a second site for the animals was opened in neighboring Jefferson County.
Hospital operator Centura said in a statement that patients at Superior’s Centura-Avista Adventist Hospital were “escaped safely” to other facilities.
Away from the fire, large trucks were overturned by a gust of wind in the Denver suburb of Arvada on Thursday.
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