Update on the six largest wildfires in Colorado

Air Tanker drop Oil Springs Fire
An Air Tanker drops on the Oil Springs Fire to protect a natural gas plant south of Rangely, CO. The retardant did not cover the plant. Posted 6-23-2021 on InciWeb.

Colorado has six wildfires larger than 500 acres. The fires have not been extremely active over the last couple of days and there is a chance of thunderstorms over most of the western part of the state through the weekend.

wildfires in Colorado, June 24, 2021

Oil Springs Fire, 11,933 acres, 18 miles south of Rangely. The Great Basin Incident Management Team 3 assumed command of the fire at 6:30 a.m. on June 22. Firefighters are still seeing active fire behavior due to dry conditions, receptive fuels and wind.

Muddy Slide Fire, 4,056 acres, 22 miles south of Steamboat Springs. The Rocky Mountain Area Type 2 Incident Management Team Blue assumed command of the Muddy Slide Fire at 6:00 a.m. Thursday. Evacuation information is available HERE. On Thursday, the fire area is forecast to receive afternoon showers, thunderstorms, and increased moisture, reducing fire behavior in the short-term, giving firefighters an opportunity to safely engage the fire.

Sylvan Fire, 3,752 acres, 12 miles south of Eagle. The Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Management Team, with Dan Dallas as Incident Commander assumed command of the fire at 6 a.m. Thursday. On the east side of the fire, crews are focusing on working from Sylvan Lake to the west creating a direct fireline from the lake to the power line road. On the west side firefighters are completing direct fireline on the southeast corner where the fire has crossed the Mount Thomas Trail.

West Fire, 3,401 acres, 41 miles southeast of Rock Springs, Wyoming on the WY/CO border. On Thursday crews are securing and strengthening fire lines on all sides of the fire. Unburned fuel inside containment lines will continue to burn and may produce smoke that will be visible as these interior pockets of fuel continue to burn inside established fire lines.

Trail Canyon Fire, 881 acres, 10 miles northwest of Red Mesa. The spread of the fire has been stopped.

Wild Cow Fire, 553 acres, 26 miles north of Fruita. The fire is being managed by Ross Wilmore and the Upper Colorado River Type 3 Incident Management Team. Not much additional information is available.

West Fire burns numerous structures at Alpine, California

West fire alpine CA

Above: The West Fire at Alpine, California. Screenshot from KUSI video.

(UPDATED at 4:37 p.m. PDT July 6, 2018)

CAL FIRE said the spread of the West Fire has been virtually stopped, but there is still quite a bit of active fire between structures that is threatening buildings. Firefighters will be working throughout the night to mitigate the threat.

(Originally published at 3:33 p.m. PDT July 6, 2018)

A destructive wildfire broke out during a heat wave in Southern California Friday. As the temperature in eastern San Diego County exceeded 100 degrees the West Fire started on the east side of Alpine and quickly spread through residential areas south of Interstate 8.

At 3:30 p.m. the fire had burned approximately 350 acres.

In viewing video shot by KUSI News, it appeared that many structures were likely victim to the flames.

There may have been a close call involving an inmate crew. The tweet below has an unfortunate choice of words, but the crew appears to be moving as rapidly as possible away from advancing flames.


The screenshot below from the KUSI video (at -41:20) was probably just after the crew “escaped” the flames only to have to confront traffic on the busy lanes of Interstate 8 which appeared to be fully open. They can be seen running at first.

inmate crew west fire alpine
An inmate crew appeared to have a close call on the West Fire on Interstate 8 at Alpine, CA July 6, 2018.

The video, if you can deal with the constantly panning camera, shows many examples of structures burning. I skimmed through and while I saw a couple of places with retardant on the ground, I only saw one air tanker, a 1,200-gallon S-2T, making a drop. I didn’t see any helicopters, but there could have been many aircraft that I missed or didn’t appear in front of the camera. Eight air tankers were reloading with retardant at Medford, Oregon Thursday while fighting the Klamathon Fire just south of the California/Oregon border.

West fire alpine CA
West Fire. Screenshot from KUSI video.
West fire alpine CA
West Fire. Screenshot from KUSI video.

From the photos below it appears that the fire burned up against the back yard of the USFS Descanso Ranger District office at 3348 Alpine Blvd. and was also very active across the street.