Picking Up The Pieces After The Fire

(AP)  Dozens of families headed back into the charred Colorado foothills Wednesday to search for remnants of their lives after a 4,400-acre wildfire destroyed more than 80 homes.

Fire officials began allowing the residents into the area after cooler weather and scattered rain helped slow the fire.

"They need to get back home. They need to have closure," Fremont County Sheriff Ivan Middlemiss said.

He warned the residents to prepare themselves emotionally, telling them: "This is not going to be the same area in your lifetime or my lifetime as when you left Sunday."

Some homeowners braced for the worst.

"In bed last night, I was laying there thinking maybe it's still there," said Jan Freeman, who left her wedding ring behind in her haste to evacuate after the fire broke out Sunday.

She and her husband, Cecil Freeman, were told by acquaintances that their two-story home with a view of Pikes Peak and grazing elk was gone, along with at least 82 others. They said they plan to rebuild.

Hundreds of families were evacuated when the fire broke out in dry timber and brush west about 110 miles southwest of Denver. Besides the homes, the blaze destroyed a general store and several other structures. Royal Gorge Park closed temporarily but reopened Tuesday.

Middlemiss said the blaze may have been started by an outdoor barbecue grill. There are no suspects.

The fire broke out in a foothills area where modest homes and mobile houses are scattered on small lots among stands of fir and pine. Homeowners are a mix of full- and part-time residents.

In the fire's wake, some chimneys remained standing amid the rubble of the destroyed homes. In one spot stood the shell of a burned-out bus. Blackened trees littered the landscape.

On a message board at Cotopaxi High School, authorities posted a list of destroyed homes, identified by street name but not house number.

Evacuees sat at tables, chatting. A man and two children watched cartoons on a television in the gym. Some called insurance companies or tried to line up temporary housing. Many chose to stay at motels or with friends.

The fire is the most devastating in Colorado in several years. Two fires in 2000 destroyed about 75 homes combined. In 1989, a fire destroyed 44 homes.

Elsewhere in Colorado, a wildfire in Las Animas County, bordering New Mexico, had damaged at least one home and forced the evacuation of 11 ranches and three other homes near Trinidad.

A separate, 15,000-acre fire in the same area threatened three communities and had burned across some methane-gas fields, fire information officer Alan Hoffmeister said. The gas wells were shut down and the pipelines were drained.

In California, weather began drying out and heating up Tuesday as firefighters battled seven wildfires burning on more than 10,000 acres of brush and forestland.

Several structures - none of them homes - have been destroyed in the blazes, some of which have been burning since last week, in Los Padres, San Bernardino, Sequoia and Angeles national forests. Three firefighters have suffered minor injuries.

The largest fire, north of Ojai in Ventura County, burned across 6,200 acres on Tuesday.

In New Mexico, at least seven fires triggered by lightning last weekend were burning, including a blaze that prompted a brief voluntary evacuation advisory in a Cimarron subdivision. Also in northern New Mexico, a fire burning on 9,343 acres in Mora County prompted evacuations of seven to eight homes in the Naranjo area.

By Colleen Slevin