- Thread Starter
- #61
5am Update from Larimer County Sheriff - Justin Smith
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I apologize for the middle of the night post. I returned home late yesterday evening, grabbed some dinner and went directly to bed.
I spent the second day of the Cameron Peak Fire up at the fire as we continue evacuations and maIntaining a safety perimeter around the fire. Unlike the High Park Fire, this fire has been nearly exclusively on USFS lands, so the firefighting operations are being directly by the forest service, so our role at this time is focused on the evacuations, rescues and road closures.
As such, the reports on the specifics of the fire and the firegfigthing operations fall to the USFS. Communications in the Upper Poudre Canyon are challenging, so news has been a little slow so far. We are continuing to work on that.
By the end of the day, estimates on fire size were in the upper 4,000 acres. Given the weather conditions and fuel type, I predict that we will see many more days of exponential growth- but I hope that I’m wrong. There just isn’t much that can be done on the ground with this fire and conditions have not been conducive to the type of air operations that are needed to slow or direct this fire.
We’ve worked to locate hikers and campers in the backcountry and get hem out. We are not aware of anyone in imminent danger, but we have been working to locate and extract a family of four who are reported to be on the west side of the fire. Yesterday, we were able to get assistance from the Colorado National Guard searching with helicopters. I believe the USFS put rangers into some areas on horseback to locate and extract hikers and campers. I don’t know the details on that operations. As of last night, we had not been able to locate the family. At this point, we don’t even know the identity of the family, so it’s been challenging.
I am not aware of any structures that burned. The area of the start don’t contain many structures. Our early evacs focused mainly on dispersed campers in the backcountry along with a handful of established campgrounds. Overall, I’ve been pleased with how those evacs went.
We were forced to begin evacs of structures along the highway in the Upper Poudre near the end of the day yesterday as the fire approached the Poudre Falls area. We have been casting a pretty broad net of evacs in the backcountry as it’s challenging to locate the people camping back there and the last thing we want is to have this fire get up and run and have people trapped by the fire.
I believe the USFS is discussing some broad area closures. I don’t know what those will likely be yet.
We have been working with property owners in the evacuated areas to allow them to retrieve items from their properties when conditions allowed. Just like during other fires, we will continue to do that as conditions safely allow.
We understand just how concerning this fire is to everyone throughout the area. It’s gut wrenching to watch as areas I’ve enjoyed camping, hiking and recreating in go up in flames. At the end of the day yesterday, I witnessed portions of the Chambers Lake Campground get consumed by this fire- areas that I had been standing in just an hour earlier. I believe there was at least one empty camper with kayaks that was probably burned at the campground. Watching Chambers burn, all I could think of was the hundreds of thousands of memories that families had created in that campground.
As you have read, despite efforts by a handful of engine crews patrolling Highway 14 and a couple of bucket equipped helicopters, the fire spotted and crossed near the Big South Trailhead. I was in the area, but some is so heavy that I couldn’t see where it was burning on that side.
We do have a critical public safety communications site north of the fire that we are paying close attention to (the Killpecker Site). That is the one we got completed after High Park and without it, we’d have almost no communications in this part of the county.
My observations have been that so far this fire isn’t burning like we saw in the early days of High Park. I’ve not witnessed the massive wall of fire, but it appears to creep more below the canopy and then torch up and burn areas of trees. However, the only place we have been able to put eyes o the fire fro the ground has been along Highway 14, so I can’t attest to specific conditions on the fire north of Hwy 14.
Today is a new day and the Type 2 management team the USFS brought in assumes command and control of the fire. We will be working with them as they establish goals and strategies to control and suppress the fire. In my opinion, until they can safely launch large scale air operations, there isn’t a lot that can be done. The terrain and forest conditions are such that there just isn’t much ground and engine crews can do, other than some structure protection.
I truly hope and pray that more positive news can be delivered in the coming days, but I expect we will be on this one for some time.
I am tremendously proud of the LCSO personnel along with our plethora of partner public safety agencies who are stepping up. Those first responders are amazing and dedicated people and you just need to know they are doing everything possible to protect lives and property during this fire.
Signing out to get ready to head back up.
*******
I apologize for the middle of the night post. I returned home late yesterday evening, grabbed some dinner and went directly to bed.
I spent the second day of the Cameron Peak Fire up at the fire as we continue evacuations and maIntaining a safety perimeter around the fire. Unlike the High Park Fire, this fire has been nearly exclusively on USFS lands, so the firefighting operations are being directly by the forest service, so our role at this time is focused on the evacuations, rescues and road closures.
As such, the reports on the specifics of the fire and the firegfigthing operations fall to the USFS. Communications in the Upper Poudre Canyon are challenging, so news has been a little slow so far. We are continuing to work on that.
By the end of the day, estimates on fire size were in the upper 4,000 acres. Given the weather conditions and fuel type, I predict that we will see many more days of exponential growth- but I hope that I’m wrong. There just isn’t much that can be done on the ground with this fire and conditions have not been conducive to the type of air operations that are needed to slow or direct this fire.
We’ve worked to locate hikers and campers in the backcountry and get hem out. We are not aware of anyone in imminent danger, but we have been working to locate and extract a family of four who are reported to be on the west side of the fire. Yesterday, we were able to get assistance from the Colorado National Guard searching with helicopters. I believe the USFS put rangers into some areas on horseback to locate and extract hikers and campers. I don’t know the details on that operations. As of last night, we had not been able to locate the family. At this point, we don’t even know the identity of the family, so it’s been challenging.
I am not aware of any structures that burned. The area of the start don’t contain many structures. Our early evacs focused mainly on dispersed campers in the backcountry along with a handful of established campgrounds. Overall, I’ve been pleased with how those evacs went.
We were forced to begin evacs of structures along the highway in the Upper Poudre near the end of the day yesterday as the fire approached the Poudre Falls area. We have been casting a pretty broad net of evacs in the backcountry as it’s challenging to locate the people camping back there and the last thing we want is to have this fire get up and run and have people trapped by the fire.
I believe the USFS is discussing some broad area closures. I don’t know what those will likely be yet.
We have been working with property owners in the evacuated areas to allow them to retrieve items from their properties when conditions allowed. Just like during other fires, we will continue to do that as conditions safely allow.
We understand just how concerning this fire is to everyone throughout the area. It’s gut wrenching to watch as areas I’ve enjoyed camping, hiking and recreating in go up in flames. At the end of the day yesterday, I witnessed portions of the Chambers Lake Campground get consumed by this fire- areas that I had been standing in just an hour earlier. I believe there was at least one empty camper with kayaks that was probably burned at the campground. Watching Chambers burn, all I could think of was the hundreds of thousands of memories that families had created in that campground.
As you have read, despite efforts by a handful of engine crews patrolling Highway 14 and a couple of bucket equipped helicopters, the fire spotted and crossed near the Big South Trailhead. I was in the area, but some is so heavy that I couldn’t see where it was burning on that side.
We do have a critical public safety communications site north of the fire that we are paying close attention to (the Killpecker Site). That is the one we got completed after High Park and without it, we’d have almost no communications in this part of the county.
My observations have been that so far this fire isn’t burning like we saw in the early days of High Park. I’ve not witnessed the massive wall of fire, but it appears to creep more below the canopy and then torch up and burn areas of trees. However, the only place we have been able to put eyes o the fire fro the ground has been along Highway 14, so I can’t attest to specific conditions on the fire north of Hwy 14.
Today is a new day and the Type 2 management team the USFS brought in assumes command and control of the fire. We will be working with them as they establish goals and strategies to control and suppress the fire. In my opinion, until they can safely launch large scale air operations, there isn’t a lot that can be done. The terrain and forest conditions are such that there just isn’t much ground and engine crews can do, other than some structure protection.
I truly hope and pray that more positive news can be delivered in the coming days, but I expect we will be on this one for some time.
I am tremendously proud of the LCSO personnel along with our plethora of partner public safety agencies who are stepping up. Those first responders are amazing and dedicated people and you just need to know they are doing everything possible to protect lives and property during this fire.
Signing out to get ready to head back up.
