Meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld reported We've experienced only 5% of our typical precipitation within the past 30 days. This drought in conjunction with the hot and windy weather is what allowed the Lee fire to spread from a few lightning strikes into the over 116,000 acre blaze It is now. Schoenfeld explained that smoke conditions are expected to improve with the wind shifting to come from the west, but the wind may also create more unstable conditions midweek.
Fire Behavior Analyst Kevin Thompson echoed Schoenfeld's concerns surrounding weather and fire growth.
"When we get into Wednesday, that's the day that we want to be really heads up. That's the potential for some of this large fire fire activity to go out there and be on those runs."
The Lee Fire has prompted evacuations across large swathes of Rio Blanco County. Some of these evacuation orders are still in place, including large public land closures from Colorado River Valley into the Roan Plateau, and then into County Road 252 through Rifle Gap and Rifle Mountain Park. Congressman Jeff Hurd made an appearance at the meeting to emphasize his support for first responders and his rural constituents.
"Fires like this affect folks that don't necessarily get as much attention, farmers and ranchers for example. This fire threatens livestock. It threatens the range, it threatens ranchers. I understand that there's some feed and hay issues up in Rio Blanco County, we're losing some feed up there. That's not easy to replace."
Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team Commander Ben Sanders addressed balancing priorities like agriculture, but also infrastructure and the lives and safety of first responders.
"So we are dealing with power, infrastructure, oil and gas, ranching, range, land, agricultural, those all right up there to develop this strategy. Like I said, this fire's unprecedented history, so we're trying to get out ahead of it. And we're trying to make it where it's more successful for our responders. We're looking at anything that may hurt our responders on the ground, snags, trees, rocks, driving..so we try to balance that and figure out the best strategy to implement.
Shifting focus east to the much smaller 14,000 acre Elk Fire, Rocky Mountain Team 3's Fred Tucker reports there hasn't been nearly as much growth in the past few days. And he told the crowd they're working with an unusually large amount of resources.
"We have, I'm guessing around 700 firefighters on the ground. That includes crews, engines, um, and heavy equipment. As far as air resources go. We have 10 helicopters assigned to the incident. Multiple fixed wings, that's large air tanker seats and other aircraft. You see dropping the red stuff out of the air."
Tucker told the crowd they're pulling some of these resources off the elk fire and focusing them on the much larger Lee Fire to the west
Coming down this 13 corridor, that this corner up here, we actually have containment line around that. That's very important to us because that ultimately is the most threatening piece of the fire to the community of Meeker. But we continue working there. We keep deepening those lines and we keep people engaged in here."
Nearly 1,100 personnel are responding to the Lee fire, supported by 12 aircraft, 24 hand crews, and 60 engines. Garfield County schools delayed reopening due to poor air quality and communication disruptions. The Rifle Correctional Center was evacuated on Saturday as a precaution. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has temporarily closed the shooting range at West Rifle Creek State Wildlife Area due to high fire danger and increased fire activity from the Lee Fire.
Up to date information on the spread of the fire and evacuation orders can be found on the Elk and Lee Fire Information Facebook page, the Rio Blanco Sheriff's and Garfield County Sheriff's Facebook pages and the app and website WatchDuty. KDNK will continue to cover this story as it develops.
