I'm witnessing a wildfire that's near Breckenridge, Colorado

Hey guys,
So as some of you know, my family and I are staying in Breckenridge, Colorado. We’ve had a great time so far, and when I got here I never thought I would be facing a wildfire with the possibility of evacuating, but that’s what’s happening right now. The wildfire is 4 miles north of Breckenridge, and is so far little contained, despite firefighters working furiously to keep it away from this resort town. Smoke jumpers, helicopters carrying buckets of water, and firefighting aircraft have been deployed to the scene. It was first discovered yesterday at about 11:15 am Moutain Daylight Time, or about 1:15 pm EDT by a moutain biker. When discovered, the fire was only a size of 50 square feet. Now, it is as large as 84 acres. At about 3:30 pm MDT yesterday, a large cloud of thick black smoke along with the occasional flame could be seen. Currently, thanks to the efforts of firefighters and the aircraft, only a small white plume of wispy smoke is visible at times. The fire has been dubbed the ‘Peak 2 Fire’.

Shortly after, at around 4:30 pm MDT or so, the neighborhood of Peak 7 (north side of Breck) was evacuated, which encompasses nearly 500 homes, vacation or permanent residents. An evacuation center was set up at the Frisco Middle School in Frisco, Colorado. The local Red, White, and Blue Fire Protection District put the rest of the town (Peaks 8, 9, and 10) on a pre-evacuation notice. To my knowledge we are still on that notice. Residents of Peak 7 did not want to stay in the evacuation center overnight so it was closed at 10:00 pm MDT, although I believe they are still under a mandatory evacuation order, however it may have expired at noon. Currently where I’m at is not in the threatened area, although the fire growth is likely thanks to the warm and dry temperatures, and the fire spread quickly thanks to the trees that were cut down because of beetle-kill.

I may head down near the Incident Command Post at the local high school to get some pictures/video of the helicopters taking off with buckets of water later. It’s not in the threatened area.

Yesterday the fire danger at the height of the blaze for the town of Breckenridge was set at ‘HIGH’. As of this morning, it has been updated to ‘VERY HIGH’.

If you guys want to check out the news or official incident page for more information, click the link to the incident page down below or search ‘peak 2 wildfire’ or ‘peak 2 fire’ on Google.

Incident page link: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5321/

I’ll update this thread when I am able. But yes, I am alive and perfectly fine right now.

That is a good size fire there. I have some wild land firefighting training and know that they are not easy to control in the conditions that were listed on the website, especially the wind which spreads the fire even more. Large fires like that are not common in my area, but I understand how they are controlled, extinguished, and overhauled with the resources available for the incident. Keep your eyes on the news and ears on the radio. Be ready for an evacuation if that comes.

Well, according to the Fire District and local city employees, the fire has been put out, however the smoke is still visible and they dropped buckets on it this morning because it’s still smoldering. I can’t verify this report yet, but I can confirm that smoke is visible and smells like smoke, but the actual fire itself doesn’t seem very bad anymore. The state will do a lot to protect these resort towns as they bring in lots of revenue.

I’ll update further when I hear the news or anything else. I wonder if the fire department would tell me if it’s out or not, but it definitely seems not as big of a threat, and the Peak 7 neighborhood suffered no damage and everyone was allowed to return to the area.

They will continue to monitor the situation, however and the fire danger level continues to be set at very high.

So we’ll see if these reports are accurate. It definitely was much worse yesterday.

UPDATE: According to the incident page, the fire is only 7% contained. Maybe it’s more contained over here and not a threat, but according to the incident page what the gondola operator said is pretty true, but he was probably referring to the spread of the fire as it seems to not be spreading that much.

The news says that Peak 7 residents have not been allowed to return and we are STILL under pre-evacuation notice despite the fire not spreading much today, but it could tomorrow or Saturday…I leave on Saturday anyways so that’s not much of a concern. Which makes sense why the fire danger level continues to stay at Very High.

News articles link:

  1. http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/07/06/peak-2-fire-breckenridge-evacuation/
  2. http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/breckenridge-fire-evacuations/

I hope there isn’t too big of a loss of property or any loss of life.

This is the update that is posted on the official Facebook page (all times are Mountain Daylight Time):

I’m heading out in about a few minutes to Denver International Airport and I’ll be back home in OH by tonight, so that ends me personally witnessing it. No property damage or injuries were ever reported or occurred, so that’s good. The Baldy Fire was a separate fire that probably started due to an out of control campfire because it was less than half an acre so I imagine it took little time to put it out.

I’ll post some pictures tomorrow since I’ll be home.