The wildfires in Colorado are back. After a summer of dealing with wildfires, another damaging fire popped up in the state. The fire near the small southern Colorado town of Wetmore has already destroyed houses and forced hundreds to evacuate.
The fire which is taking up 3 1/4-square-miles of Wetmore, Colorado has destroyed at least 14 homes and led to the evacuation of over 350 people.
Over 130 firefighter from 16 different parts of the state were working to put out the fire that started on Tuesday. With high winds up to 79 mph, the fire quickly spread. As the fire spread overnight, firefighters had to knock on the doors of homes in Pueblo County and asked the resident to evacuate. They are being housed in nearby motels and Red Cross emergency shelters.
By Wednesday evening, the fire was only 15 percent contained, according to the Associated Press. The fire might not be controlled anytime soon as winds were still high on Wednesday, reaching over 30 mph.
"Wind gusts in the 30s is very bad," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Ralph Bellah told the Los Angeles Times. "If the winds don't show up, we should be able to utilize our aviation resources."
Police are still not sure what caused the fire, but wind is a big factor. Colliding power lines that created sparks could have caused the fire among the dry brush, which quickly grew due to high winds.
Another fire occurred in the same area two years before.
The fire near Wetmore isn't the only fire in the state. It is just one of four. Wildfires have also spread around southwest Colorado. These fires in the southwest have burned over 300 acres of land. And over 30 homes were evacuated. another fire in the north has covered 900 acres.
"It's been an aggressive fire season," Micki Trost of the Colorado Office of Emergency Management told The Times.
The fires during the summer also caused severe destruction. The fire in Colorado Springs, the most destructive fire in Colorado's history, destroyed over 380 homes and killed two people, according the to the Times.
According to a Google Crisis Map, the current fires in Colorado are the large fire in Wetmore near Pueblo County, a fire in San Juan National Forest, one in Rocky Mountain National Park, and one just by the border to New Mexico.
