Fires

The Black Forest Fire occurred in mid-June 2013 in a heavily populated woodland area northeast of Colorado Springs . Even though it was fully contained in just nine days, the fire’s proximity to neighborhoods made it the most destructive wildfire in state history: two people died and 486 houses...

The Cameron Peak Fire is the largest wildfire in Colorado history. It began on August 13, 2020, and burned 208,913 acres of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in western Larimer County . Thought to be human-caused, the fire ignited on the flanks of Cameron Peak some forty miles west of Fort...

One of the most destructive wildfire s in Colorado history, the East Troublesome Fire began on October 14, 2020, in the central Rocky Mountains east of Troublesome Creek in Grand County . A week later, high winds whipped the fire into a 100,000-acre inferno racing northeast through Grand Lake and...

The Last Chance Fire started on June 25, 2012, when sparks from a motorist’s flat tire set the prairie ablaze near the town of Last Chance in eastern Colorado. The fire was 100 percent contained in nearly twenty-four hours, but in that time the wildfire scorched 45,000 acres and destroyed several...

The Pine Gulch Fire was ignited by a lightning strike on July 31, 2020, about eighteen miles north of Grand Junction in Garfield and Mesa Counties. Over the next month, the fire grew to encompass more than 139,000 acres, making it the third-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The Pine...

Started by an illegal campfire on June 27, 2018, the Spring Creek Fire raced across 108,045 acres of forested foothills in southern Colorado, near La Veta Pass on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley . By the time it was fully contained on September 10, the Spring Creek blaze was the third-...