Events

The Missionary Ridge Fire began on June 9, 2002, northeast of Durango in southwest Colorado. It burned until July 15, destroying forty-six houses and cabins and charring 73,000 acres of La Plata County forest. One firefighter died while fighting the blaze, which became the seventh-largest wildfire...

The West Fork Complex refers to three separate wildfires ignited by lightning strikes in southern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains in June 2013. The West Fork, Windy Pass, and Papoose Fires broke out between June 5 and June 19. By the time they were contained on July 15, the three blazes scorched a...

The Denver Police Department was formed in 1859 to bring order to a rowdy, dusty mining camp. The department grew up with the city and with broader trends in American policing. Denver Police spent most of the late nineteenth century focused on drunks, gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes. Later, a...

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 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...

On June 10, 2008, lightning sparked the Bridger Fire in a US Army training area in southeast Colorado, about twenty-five miles south of La Junta . Also known as the Piñon Canyon Fire, the blaze went on to become a significant wildfire , burning 46,612 acres of grassland in Las Animas County ...

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...

Since the city was founded in 1858, Denver has included residents from a plethora of ethnic backgrounds drawn in by the promises of wealth and freedom often associated with the American West. As the city developed, immigrants from various parts of the United States as well as Europe and Asia...

Ignited by lightning in early June 2012, the High Park Fire became one of the largest and most destructive wildfires in Colorado history, burning 87,415 acres along the Cache la Poudre River in the mountains west of Fort Collins . By the time it was fully contained on June 30, the High Park Fire...