Ready, Aim, FIRE!

[eddiememphis]

https://www.9news.com/article/news/l...c-dad82a1d5c2f

The Larimer County Sheriff's Office ordered mandatory evacuations Monday for a wildfire near Storm Mountain, west of Loveland, that quickly grew to hundreds of acres.

It's that time of the year again.

I saw this one blow up. I was in Loveland today and thought it was a house fire until I got a better view and saw it was on the mountainside. That was about 11:15.

By the time I started heading down I-25 it was huge, with the smoke reaching well east of the interstate.

It was 21 percent humidity in Loveland at 10:00. It was 9 percent in Arvada three hours later. No rain on the forecast.

We could be in for another nasty fire season this last part of the summer.

[Sawin]

The fire is just down the canyon from my family in Glen Haven, a bit closer to Drake and east of them. The winds tend to blow east, so they're "not in the direct path", says my cousin. They own/operate the General Store in Glen Haven, and have gone through this routine before so are trying not to be too concerned yet, but we're all watching this one closely.

[Mtneer]

Highly recommend downloading the Watch Duty app. It's free on iPhone. But if you pay for the $25/annual subscription, you get to see the real time air attacks.

I'm watching Tanker 40 doing a run and heading back. The Chinook and Bell 205 have been doing laps from the nearest lake to the fire, an Airbus chopper is doing laps around the fire, a SETAC is doing many drops, and a little Cesna is providing overwatch.

Because of this app, I knew about the fire when it was 10 acres. Then got regular updates as it grew.

Tanker 10 inbound now!

[Ah Pook]

Y'all stay safe!

I know that area and it's unpredictability.

[BPTactical]

The fire is just down the canyon from my family in Glen Haven, a bit closer to Drake and east of them. The winds tend to blow east, so they're "not in the direct path", says my cousin. They own/operate the General Store in Glen Haven, and have gone through this routine before so are trying not to be too concerned yet, but we're all watching this one closely.

Hope they stay safe

[hollohas]

Taking this one seriously. I could see the smoke from Kipling and 285 this morning.

[Jer]

Monitoring things closely as they just moved the voluntary evacuation zone to right next to our neighborhood. I had a pic I took yesterday right @ 11:00am from in front of our house that I was going to share but it seems as though maybe the site's image size limit might be acting up a bit(?) today. It's dry, it's hot but thankfully it hasn't been overly windy.

If that last condition changes and we start to get winds... things might get a little bit dicey. We'd be in similar territory of conditions outside of Superior last year. I'm sure that the powers that be are operating with an overabundance of caution on this one. Rightly so. These evac zones are probably about as conservative as they've ever been but I'm still monitoring things closely to see if we're going to need to boogey up outa here or not.

It was at 350 acres yesterday shortly after the first pics I took and then 950 acres @ 6:50am this morning when command was taken over by the big dogs. It's now at about 2,000 acres and still 0% containment. So the rate at which it's doubling currently is a bit concerning so hopefully things plateau a bit.

We're already considering logistics of the worse case scenario happens. I've reached out to those I know who are in the newly updated mandatory evacuation zones to see if they need anything or any help. Same goes to anyone here reading this if there's something immediately we can help with but my guess is we're probably closest to the path of people on the forum who haven't already been evacuated. No space for large animals (we're in city neighborhood on the literal edge of civilization) but we take small animals and store items if it helps.

Let me know and best of wishes for all those affected.

[flogger]

Thats tough, hope everything ends well.
Lots of air traffic and crappy hot on the ground. Prayers to the crews and anyone in peril.
Any idea how this started?

[Jer]

Thats tough, hope everything ends well.
Lots of air traffic and crappy hot on the ground. Prayers to the crews and anyone in peril.
Any idea how this started?

Still unknown. Not a cloud in the sky & no storms in or around the area for several days prior though so we can probably safely rule out lightning strike in my unprofessional opinion. I hate to say it but probably some dumb human did something dumb as is usually the case in these sorts of things, sadly. I'd love to be wrong but, either way, the damage is currently being done.

[Sawin]

There's a new one right up against Lyons, CO today now too... ugh