Wildfires grow rapidly in Colorado
AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Loveland, Colorado, on July 30 as multiple wildfires burned throughout the region.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Alexander Mountain fire is one of several fires burning in the state of Colorado today.
00:05This was the view from AccuWeather meteorologist Tony Laubach's home.
00:09Wow, about 20 miles east of the fire near Milliken on Monday night.
00:15He joins us live from Loveland with the latest on this fire
00:19and where it compares to others burning in the west today.
00:22Yeah, Bree, we have got talking about a very active situation here.
00:29In fact, just breaking in the last hour, a new fire has developed about 15 to 20
00:34miles south of this one near the town of Lyons.
00:37New evacuation orders in the Boulder and southern Larimer County areas as well.
00:42So we're getting information on that coming in hot and heavy.
00:44But the fire you're looking at behind me here is the Alexander Mountain fire.
00:48Has doubled in size.
00:50If you were with us this morning, it was about 990 acres.
00:53We are now sitting at over 1,800 acres.
00:55You see some of the thicker smoke there off on the northern flank of this.
00:59That is where most of the activity is.
01:01In fact, that has prompted new evacuation orders extending up into the Masonville area.
01:06So this is a very active and dangerous situation which continues to escalate.
01:10You're talking about some small numbers compared to other fires burning in the west.
01:15The fires in California there are burning hundreds of thousands of acres as opposed
01:20to this one which is just in the thousands.
01:22But again, these fires get started somehow.
01:24And unfortunately, when the weather is not very conducive to help firefighters with this,
01:28that spread can happen very, very quickly.
01:31This in a mountainous region, you're seeing a lot of the video here that has been shot
01:34over the last 24 hours of this particular fire.
01:37A lot of residents in this area, sadly, have seen this before.
01:41And this is probably not going to be the last time they see it either.
01:45This is the third or fourth time that there have been major fires either,
01:49I shouldn't say major, but fires either by the house or the cabin.
01:52I'm not going to say you get used to it, but you know after the first couple you know
01:57what you need to do, your priorities, and then secure people and then property.
02:06And the good news is right now we haven't heard anything in the way of property damage.
02:10So we haven't lost any buildings as of this point.
02:13But again, though, the fire continuing to grow 1,800 acres.
02:16And again, you go about 15 miles south on my drive up here,
02:20I saw the smoke actually start to billow from the new fire down near Lyons.
02:25So again, this just happening within the last hour.
02:27So we are seeing these fires popping up pretty rapidly and they are spreading rapidly.
02:32And unfortunately, we start adding extra fires on this.
02:34That means we're devoting resources to more places.
02:37That's going to cause some issues here.
02:39We've seen a lot of helicopters flying in and out of this, slurry bombers,
02:42because this is not an easy area to reach by vehicle or by foot breeze.
02:46So these fires are going to continue to be an issue for us for the next several days
02:50before we see any chance of moisture returning to the state.
02:53Wow, Tony. Well, please stay safe out there.
02:56Do you have any plans? Are you going anywhere else?
03:03I'm going to probably head south and go take a look at the fire down near Lyons.
03:06Again, these are all within about 25 miles of where I live.
03:10Fortunately, not in any danger for me.
03:12And hopefully a lot of the areas will stay in the mountains,
03:15kind of in the least populated areas.
03:17But that is something, unfortunately, we're going to have to wait and see what happens.
03:21All right, we'll continue to keep you guys updated on that.