Wildfires grow rapidly in Colorado

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Loveland, Colorado, on July 30 as multiple wildfires burned throughout the region.

Transcript

00:00The Alexander Mountain fire is one of several fires burning in the state of Colorado today.

00:05This was the view from AccuWeather meteorologist Tony Laubach's home.

00:09Wow, about 20 miles east of the fire near Milliken on Monday night.

00:15He joins us live from Loveland with the latest on this fire

00:19and where it compares to others burning in the west today.

00:22Yeah, Bree, we have got talking about a very active situation here.

00:29In fact, just breaking in the last hour, a new fire has developed about 15 to 20

00:34miles south of this one near the town of Lyons.

00:37New evacuation orders in the Boulder and southern Larimer County areas as well.

00:42So we're getting information on that coming in hot and heavy.

00:44But the fire you're looking at behind me here is the Alexander Mountain fire.

00:48Has doubled in size.

00:50If you were with us this morning, it was about 990 acres.

00:53We are now sitting at over 1,800 acres.

00:55You see some of the thicker smoke there off on the northern flank of this.

00:59That is where most of the activity is.

01:01In fact, that has prompted new evacuation orders extending up into the Masonville area.

01:06So this is a very active and dangerous situation which continues to escalate.

01:10You're talking about some small numbers compared to other fires burning in the west.

01:15The fires in California there are burning hundreds of thousands of acres as opposed

01:20to this one which is just in the thousands.

01:22But again, these fires get started somehow.

01:24And unfortunately, when the weather is not very conducive to help firefighters with this,

01:28that spread can happen very, very quickly.

01:31This in a mountainous region, you're seeing a lot of the video here that has been shot

01:34over the last 24 hours of this particular fire.

01:37A lot of residents in this area, sadly, have seen this before.

01:41And this is probably not going to be the last time they see it either.

01:45This is the third or fourth time that there have been major fires either,

01:49I shouldn't say major, but fires either by the house or the cabin.

01:52I'm not going to say you get used to it, but you know after the first couple you know

01:57what you need to do, your priorities, and then secure people and then property.

02:06And the good news is right now we haven't heard anything in the way of property damage.

02:10So we haven't lost any buildings as of this point.

02:13But again, though, the fire continuing to grow 1,800 acres.

02:16And again, you go about 15 miles south on my drive up here,

02:20I saw the smoke actually start to billow from the new fire down near Lyons.

02:25So again, this just happening within the last hour.

02:27So we are seeing these fires popping up pretty rapidly and they are spreading rapidly.

02:32And unfortunately, we start adding extra fires on this.

02:34That means we're devoting resources to more places.

02:37That's going to cause some issues here.

02:39We've seen a lot of helicopters flying in and out of this, slurry bombers,

02:42because this is not an easy area to reach by vehicle or by foot breeze.

02:46So these fires are going to continue to be an issue for us for the next several days

02:50before we see any chance of moisture returning to the state.

02:53Wow, Tony. Well, please stay safe out there.

02:56Do you have any plans? Are you going anywhere else?

03:03I'm going to probably head south and go take a look at the fire down near Lyons.

03:06Again, these are all within about 25 miles of where I live.

03:10Fortunately, not in any danger for me.

03:12And hopefully a lot of the areas will stay in the mountains,

03:15kind of in the least populated areas.

03:17But that is something, unfortunately, we're going to have to wait and see what happens.

03:21All right, we'll continue to keep you guys updated on that.

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