Smoke over Boulder County sparks anxiety among residents as warm, dry and windy conditions continue
Smoke from a fire seen billowing over a part of Boulder County on Monday afternoon caused anxiety for some residents as warm, dry and windy conditions continued along the Front Range. The brush fire burned 35 acres before it was quickly extinguished by firefighters.
"I was concerned, like, 'Oh no, not again,' especially considering we just had all the hubbub recently about turning off the power," said Boulder County resident Mike Slavin.
"It's just been warm and dry and yeah, with, especially with all the wind out there, it is. It is a bit scary," said Boulder County resident Jason Merryman.
Some homes in the area were evacuated for a time after the fire started in a large area with open space around 3 p.m. Monday near 104th and Dillon Road. The evacuation order was lifted about 4:30 p.m.
"It was a cornfield. So we had good 360 access. We didn't access it from all areas. We had highway access and roadway access. So a perfect storm in a lot of ways, that it was in a contained area," said Louisville Fire Protection District Chief Kevin Milan.
No structures were damaged, and there were no reported injuries.
Investigators believe the fire started when a combine harvester in an agricultural field sent up some sort of sparks and ignited hay bales.
"Certainly, the dryness is what's of greatest concern. We had wind speeds today -- nothing like the wind speeds during the Marshall Fire -- but the winds and dry weather and unusual December have spilled into January," said Milan.
Winds from the west were gusting at about 35 mph at 3:15 p.m. in eastern Boulder County, according to First Alert Chief Meteorologist Dave Aguilera. Tuesday was a First Alert Weather Day as the high fire danger grew with strong winds and a Red Flag Warning in the foothills.
Fire officials urged residents to sign up for alerts in order to stay informed.
"Be signed up for the evacuation alerts, make sure that they're in whatever community that they live in, that they're well connected to that," said Milan.
"They should rest easy knowing that the hundreds of firefighters out there tonight responded quickly... That's why we're standing here talking about it, and not still out there dealing with smoke and flames," said City of Lafayette Fire Chief Pete Bradshaw.
Residents were happy to breathe a sigh of relief that fire crews were able to respond and put out the fire quickly.
"That's a good feeling, right? Happy to know that they took care of it," said Slavin.
