East Troublesome Fire Now 2nd-Biggest In Colorado History; Grew Sixfold In Size In 24 Hours

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Ed. Please note that this image is from last night.

A dire wildfire crisis is unfolding in Colorado after a blaze exploded sixfold in size in just 24 hours, growing to about 170,000 acres on Thursday evening. The East Troublesome Fire, burning in Grand County and extending now into Rocky Mountain National Park, forced hundreds to quickly evacuate from Grand Lake and Granby overnight, with more evacuations taking place Thursday and an unknown number of structures reportedly destroyed.

The blaze has all the hallmarks of climate change. It’s burning at an elevation of 9,000 feet at a time of year when snow should be falling. The fire is also raging during a severe drought, aggravated by record heat, through stands of trees killed or weakened by a bark beetle infestation. The East Troublesome Fire is now the second-largest wildfire in Colorado history. Three of the state’s five largest wildfires on record have now occurred in 2020. The largest, the Cameron Peak Fire, is still burning just west of Fort Collins.

Noel Livingston, who leads the team of firefighters tackling this blaze as incident commander for Pacific Northwest Team Three, said that crews saw an “amazing amount of fire spread yesterday.” In an afternoon press briefing Thursday, Livingston said the 100,000 acres of fire growth that occurred late Wednesday and into Thursday morning is “Really unheard of for a fire in this part of the world in timber."

At times, National Weather Service Doppler radar showed the smoke plume from the blaze towering almost 40,000 feet above the surface, a sign of extreme fire behavior. Typically, at such a high elevation in the state, the weather at this time of year would not result in such a high wildfire danger. Instead, a red flag warning for “critical” fire weather risk is in effect through 7 p.m. local time Thursday, with winds forecast to gust up to 50 mph, making efforts to increase fire containment difficult.

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/22/colorado-wildfire-east-troublesome/