Crews try to stop fire from reaching Colorado resort homes
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DENVER — Firefighters were working Thursday to keep a wildfire that’s forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from spreading toward homes near Colorado’s Breckenridge Ski Resort and the nearby historic town.
Crews were attacking the fire, burning about 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) north of the resort, by dropping firefighting slurry from the air as well as building containment lines on the ground to stop it from reaching nearly 500 evacuated homes. Insurance companies also paid to send contracted fire engines to the area to try to protect the pricey ski properties. Winds were calm Thursday but officials acknowledged that all their efforts to save properties could be undercut if winds shift.
The evacuees, including vacationers, were briefly allowed back to their homes to pick up items they were not able to grab before being told to leave as the fire blew up on Wednesday. The relatively small blaze quickly sent up a column of smoke visible from Interstate 70, Colorado’s main east-west highway, and the 19th-century Victorian buildings in the town of Breckenridge, a onetime gold-mining camp. Residents in town have been warned to be ready to leave in case the fire spreads toward it.
Nebraska resident Sheila Calhorn was among those who had their vacations interrupted by the fire, discovered by a mountain biker near the Colorado Trail, a nearly 500-mile (805-kilometre) hiking and biking route through the state’s mountains.
