5 people suffer minor injuries in 10 acre fire in Thornton during strong winds in Denver metro area
A 10 acre fire that burned in the northern part of the Denver metro area on Wednesday forced evacuations in some Thornton neighborhoods. One citizen and four firefighters suffered minor injuries.
Thornton Fire Department said the fire, which started in windy conditions before noon near 84th Avenue and Huron Street, was contained at about 2 p.m.
Pinnacle Charter School, located at 8412 Huron Street, and nearby businesses along 84th were evacuated during the fire. Thornton police officers also went door-to-door to order evacuations in neighborhoods located northeast of the fire. The fire didn't reach any of those homes, and by 3:30 p.m. those evacuations were lifted.
Thornton residents were concerned with how quickly the fire spread and the amount of smoke in the area.
"Scared at first, but you gotta keep calm in these situations or everything else just goes wrong," said Thornton resident Makayla Richard, who had to leave her home near the Niver Creek Open Space.
"It got within about 50-100 to the back of our school," said Pinnacle Charter School CEO Dr. Chris Miller.
While the evacuations were in effect, the city set up a temporary shelter at the Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center located at 11151 Colorado Boulevard.
"I came to the door, and that's when she came over, and she's like, 'You guys need to evacuate right now, like this is out of control,'" said Richard. "Her voice was shaking, so that was scary."
Soon after the fire started, about a half mile away thick, black smoke was seen on Colorado Department of Transportation cameras blowing across all lanes of I-25. That led to a full closure of the interstate through the area which lasted for approximately 90 minutes.
No resident structures or businesses burned in the fire, according to authorities. CBS Colorado crews captured video of multiple smoking cars in the burn area. Those vehicles looked to have been in some sort of junkyard.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, and crews are still working to determine the full scope of the damage the fire caused.
"The magnitude of response that we send to these incidents is significant. It is our intent to get ahead of these fires so we don't have a spread of conditions like what we experienced during the Marshall Fire," said Thornton Fire Chief Steve Kelley, referring to the fire in nearby Boulder County in 2021 that destroyed more than 1,000 homes.
Several fire crews from nearby agencies assisted Thornton firefighters with the fire, including Adams County Fire Rescue, Westminster Fire and the Westminster Police Department.
"That was nuts, but in the end it's material things and what matters most is getting our pets and kids out, instead of material things," said Richard.
The CBS Colorado First Alert meteorologists called for a First Alert Weather Day on Wednesday due to high winds, unseasonably warm and dry conditions and high fire danger.
A red flag warning is in effect for the second day in a row for areas below 6,000 feet from the Front Range foothills into the Eastern Plains. This includes the Denver metro area running from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Wind gusts may reach 55 mph, high temperatures will be in the 60s to low 70s and relative humidity levels will be as low as 10%.