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.