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Colorado wildfires: Western Slope fires scorch more than 22,000 acres

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Colorado wildfires: Western Slope fires scorch more than 22,000 acres


Four fires burning on Colorado’s western slope have spread to more than 22,000 acres and forced ongoing evacuations, fire officials said Wednesday.

Disaster declarations have been issued for two of the wildfires actively burning with no containment: the Leroux fire burning near Hotchkiss in Delta County and the Elk fire burning near Meeker in Rio Blanco County.

Lightning sparked three of the fires over the weekend, and the flames rapidly grew in the Western Slope’s dry vegetation, exacerbated by windy, hot and dry weather, officials said.

Multiple Colorado and federal recreation areas remain closed Wednesday, including Oak Ridge, Rio Blanco, Colorow Mountain and Piceance state wildlife areas and parts of the White River National Forest and San Juan National Forest.

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Jump to: Lee fire | Elk fire | Leroux fire | Stoner Mesa fire

The Lee fire southwest of Meeker

A wildfire burning in Rio Blanco County has scorched more than 14,000 acres, fire officials said Tuesday.

The Lee fire, which has since absorbed the Grease fire that also started near Meeker, was last mapped at 14,426 acres, fire officials said.

Meeker is about 70 miles northwest of Glenwood Springs and 40 miles north of Interstate 70.

Afternoon winds fueled the fire, pushing the flames up to Colorado 13, fire officials said in a Tuesday evening update. The fire has not yet crossed the highway.

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Incident managers are “evaluating the direction and rates of fire spread” to determine if additional evacuations need to be issued, according to the update.

As of Wednesday morning, the evacuation area was bordered to the east by Colorado 13 and the Grand Hogback, the north by Colorado 64, the west by Rio Blanco County Road 5 and the south by Bald Knob Mountain, Fourteenmile Creek and County Road 22, according to the evacuation map.

Multiple areas north and east of the current evacuation zones are on pre-evacuation status, according to the map.

The Elk fire east of Meeker

A second wildfire burning just miles away from the Lee fire, on the other side of Meeker, had consumed nearly 7,800 acres as of Tuesday, according to fire officials.

The lightning-sparked Elk fire is burning on roughly 7,751 acres of land with no containment, fire officials said Tuesday. It has destroyed at least two homes and one outbuilding since it started Saturday afternoon.

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Officials said 130 fire personnel were fighting the wildfire Tuesday evening.

“Conditions are conducive to large fire growth, with all key factors for extreme fire behavior,” fire officials said in a Tuesday evening update.

Hot and dry conditions continue to fuel the fires on either side of Meeker, with red flag warnings scheduled from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

The alert warns of low humidity between 8% and 13%, gusty winds up to 35 mph, and more.



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Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains

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Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains


Arapahoe Basin Ski Area recorded 8.5 inches of snow through Friday morning.
Lucas Herbert/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Friday morning wrapped up a warm storm across Colorado’s northern and central mountains, bringing totals of up to 10 inches of snowfall for several resorts.

Higher elevation areas of the northern mountains — particularly those in and near Summit County and closer to the Continental Divide — received the most amount of snow, with Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge mountains seeing among the highest totals.

Meanwhile, lower base areas and valleys received rain and cloudy skies, thanks to a warmer storm with a snow line of roughly 9,000 feet.



Earlier this week, OpenSnow meteorologists predicted the storm’s snow totals would be around 5-10 inches, closely matching actual totals for the northern mountains. The central mountains all saw less than 5 inches of snow.

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Here’s how much snow fell between Wednesday through Friday morning for some Western Slope mountains, according to a Friday report from OpenSnow:



Aspen Mountain: 0.5 inches

Snowmass: 0.5 inches

Copper Mountain: 10 inches

Winter Park: 9 inches

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Breckenridge Ski Resort: 9 inches

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area: 8.5 inches

Keystone Resort: 8 inches

Loveland Ski Area: 7 inches

Vail Mountain: 7 inches

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Steamboat Resort: 6 inches

Beaver Creek: 6 inches

Irwin: 4.5 inches

Cooper Mountain: 4 inches

Sunlight: 0.5 inches

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Friday and Saturday will be dry, while Sunday will bring northern showers. The next storms are forecast to be around March 3-4 and March 6-7, both favoring the northern mountains.





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Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild

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Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild


The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.

It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.

Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.

“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”

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Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.

The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.

“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.

“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”

Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.

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That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.

Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.

Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.

“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.

“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”

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Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.

Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.



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Firefighters stop spread of wildfire in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon

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Firefighters stop spread of wildfire in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon



Late Thursday morning, a house fire spreading into the nearby woods in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon prompted officials to issue a pre-evacuation order to nearby residents. Firefighters have since brought the blaze under control.

According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, a house fire broke out around 11:30 a.m. in the 10600 block of Ralston Creek Road in Golden Gate Canyon, located around 25 miles west of Denver. The fire then began to spread into the nearby trees and grass.

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Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office


Multiple fire units quickly responded to the scene, and the JCSO issued a pre-evacuation notice to all residents within a three-mile radius, warning them to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

At 12:34 p.m., the sheriff’s office announced that the fire is no longer spreading and the burn area has been contained to less than an acre. A photo shared by JCSO shows a structure nearly completely destroyed by the fire.

Pre-evacuation orders were lifted around 1 p.m.

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