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Members of the 20-man hand crew from the Rifle correctional facility work to help contain the County Road 100 fire near Carbondale Wednesday morning.
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ENLARGE
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A saw team works to help cleanup the burned area near Carbondale in the aftermath of Tuesday's County Road 100 fire.
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CARBONDALE, Colorado — The County Road 100 wildfire was declared 100 percent contained at 6 p.m. Wednesday after it charred about 1,000 acres and threatened hundreds of homes in the area between El Jebel and Carbondale.
All evacuation orders were canceled by late afternoon and travel restrictions on Highway 82 and county roads were lifted.
Carbondale Fire Chief Ron Leach credited a “heroic effort” by firefighters from throughout the valley for preventing the loss of homes and lives.
“I estimate that 300 homes were actually threatened,” Leach said.
Between 150 and 200 people were evacuated as winds whipped the fire Tuesday afternoon and an untold number more were unable to return to their homes after work.
“This was a close call. It was a good, hard initial attack (by the firefighters) that saved these houses,” said Ron Baar, a fire safety officer for the Incident Command on the fire. Baar led reporters on a tour of the burned area Wednesday afternoon.
Swirling winds that gusted up to 50 mph made the fire particularly difficult to contain.
Old grasses and other ground cover have dried out from winter and new growth hasn’t greened up yet, so the fire danger is high even though the snow only recently melted, Leach said.
“The recipe for disaster was there,” Baar said.
Cooler weather and much lighter winds helped the firefighting effort. Ironically, snow was falling in the midvalley Wednesday afternoon, just 30 hours after the fire went out of control.
Firefighters from Carbondale, Basalt, Aspen and Glenwood Springs doused hotspots and patrolled the affected areas yesterday. Leach said 140 people from 47 agencies, from fire departments to law enforcement, assisted in the fire fighting effort. Fire crews came from as far away as Paonia and the Grand Junction area.
The fire scorched about 1,000 acres after it was reported out of control around noon. The fire started in an area just east of the Carbondale rodeo grounds along County Road 100, blew through the Roaring Fork Preserve and Mayfly Bend subdivisions, jumped the Roaring Fork River onto the Ranch at Roaring Fork subdivision, then jumped Highway 82 at the base of Missouri Heights.
An investigator from the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office is looking into the cause. That will likely take some time because people need to be interviewed and field work performed, said Jim Sears, emergency manager for the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office. He declined to comment on whether investigators have any leads or theories.
One of the hardest hit areas in the wildfire was along Blue Creek between the Finnbar and Aspen Equestrian Estates subdivisions, less than 1 mile south of Catherine Store. The fire charred all the ground vegetation and fried numerous large cottonwood trees along the creek. A house in Aspen Equestrian Estates was nicked by flames in four places. Parts of the wooden shake shingle roof had been torn off during firefighting and later covered with plastic. Insulation and debris were strewn on the ground outside after firefighters had to rip into the roof or a wall.
Three homes sustained minor damage in the fire, authorities said. No residents or firefighters were injured, but a fisherman suffered burns to his arm when he was overtaken by flames. His burns weren’t life threatening, authorities said.
The Roaring Fork Preserve subdivision, where two houses are under construction, and the adjacent Mayfly Bend subdivision, with three homes, were the first areas in the path of the wildfire. Homeowner Silbi Stainton was at home with her two small children when she saw black smoke rolling toward her house along the Roaring Fork River at about 12:20 p.m. She stepped outside to investigate and soon saw flames shooting 20 to 30 feet high. She ran back inside, gathered her 4-year-old and 2-year-old along with the family dog and cat and hopped in her vehicle.
Smoke billowed from both sides of the road and occasionally obscured her vision, but she stuck to the main road out of the subdivision and onto County Road 100.
“I knew we had only one clear path out,” she said.
Stainton remained outside the subdivision until late afternoon, but returned after leaving her children with family in Carbondale. Her husband Tim had returned from his job in gas fields in western Garfield County and was helping firefighters douse remaining hotspots around their home.
Stainton said she joined her husband and their neighbors in the effort. They used hoses and buckets dipped in the river to put out remaining flames. By that time, the area was much safer because the fire had swept through, she said.
The fire surrounded the Stainton’s home and the other houses in the subdivision, but all were spared. She credited the firefighters for their incredible effort.
“Rather than a miracle, it was just hard work by the firefighters,” Stainton said.
All evacuation orders were canceled by late afternoon and travel restrictions on Highway 82 and county roads were lifted.
Carbondale Fire Chief Ron Leach credited a “heroic effort” by firefighters from throughout the valley for preventing the loss of homes and lives.
“I estimate that 300 homes were actually threatened,” Leach said.
Between 150 and 200 people were evacuated as winds whipped the fire Tuesday afternoon and an untold number more were unable to return to their homes after work.
“This was a close call. It was a good, hard initial attack (by the firefighters) that saved these houses,” said Ron Baar, a fire safety officer for the Incident Command on the fire. Baar led reporters on a tour of the burned area Wednesday afternoon.
Swirling winds that gusted up to 50 mph made the fire particularly difficult to contain.
Old grasses and other ground cover have dried out from winter and new growth hasn’t greened up yet, so the fire danger is high even though the snow only recently melted, Leach said.
“The recipe for disaster was there,” Baar said.
Cooler weather and much lighter winds helped the firefighting effort. Ironically, snow was falling in the midvalley Wednesday afternoon, just 30 hours after the fire went out of control.
Firefighters from Carbondale, Basalt, Aspen and Glenwood Springs doused hotspots and patrolled the affected areas yesterday. Leach said 140 people from 47 agencies, from fire departments to law enforcement, assisted in the fire fighting effort. Fire crews came from as far away as Paonia and the Grand Junction area.
The fire scorched about 1,000 acres after it was reported out of control around noon. The fire started in an area just east of the Carbondale rodeo grounds along County Road 100, blew through the Roaring Fork Preserve and Mayfly Bend subdivisions, jumped the Roaring Fork River onto the Ranch at Roaring Fork subdivision, then jumped Highway 82 at the base of Missouri Heights.
An investigator from the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office is looking into the cause. That will likely take some time because people need to be interviewed and field work performed, said Jim Sears, emergency manager for the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office. He declined to comment on whether investigators have any leads or theories.
One of the hardest hit areas in the wildfire was along Blue Creek between the Finnbar and Aspen Equestrian Estates subdivisions, less than 1 mile south of Catherine Store. The fire charred all the ground vegetation and fried numerous large cottonwood trees along the creek. A house in Aspen Equestrian Estates was nicked by flames in four places. Parts of the wooden shake shingle roof had been torn off during firefighting and later covered with plastic. Insulation and debris were strewn on the ground outside after firefighters had to rip into the roof or a wall.
Three homes sustained minor damage in the fire, authorities said. No residents or firefighters were injured, but a fisherman suffered burns to his arm when he was overtaken by flames. His burns weren’t life threatening, authorities said.
The Roaring Fork Preserve subdivision, where two houses are under construction, and the adjacent Mayfly Bend subdivision, with three homes, were the first areas in the path of the wildfire. Homeowner Silbi Stainton was at home with her two small children when she saw black smoke rolling toward her house along the Roaring Fork River at about 12:20 p.m. She stepped outside to investigate and soon saw flames shooting 20 to 30 feet high. She ran back inside, gathered her 4-year-old and 2-year-old along with the family dog and cat and hopped in her vehicle.
Smoke billowed from both sides of the road and occasionally obscured her vision, but she stuck to the main road out of the subdivision and onto County Road 100.
“I knew we had only one clear path out,” she said.
Stainton remained outside the subdivision until late afternoon, but returned after leaving her children with family in Carbondale. Her husband Tim had returned from his job in gas fields in western Garfield County and was helping firefighters douse remaining hotspots around their home.
Stainton said she joined her husband and their neighbors in the effort. They used hoses and buckets dipped in the river to put out remaining flames. By that time, the area was much safer because the fire had swept through, she said.
The fire surrounded the Stainton’s home and the other houses in the subdivision, but all were spared. She credited the firefighters for their incredible effort.
“Rather than a miracle, it was just hard work by the firefighters,” Stainton said.
