High Park Fire — Day 11

Tuesday saw growth in both the acreage consumed by the High Park Fire and the fire lines containing it. The fire now covers 59,845 acres — 93.5 square miles, about the size of Baltimore — and is 55 percent contained. Two-thirds of the acreage burned is private or state-owned land, one-third U.S. Forest Service land.

No new evacuations were ordered Tuesday, but 95 pre-evacuation notifications were sent to residents in the Rustic area – Colorado Highway 14 from Pingree Park Road west to mile marker 90, just west of Glen Echo Resort — this afternoon. Residents need to be prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice, going west on Highway 14 to Walden if they do go.

Glacier View Meadows filings 9-12 remain evacuated, with the rest of the subdivision on pre-evacuation alert. An informational meeting will be held for GVM residents Wednesday at 7 p.m. at 1417 Green Mountain Drive, Gate 8.

For a complete list of areas that remain evacuated, go to www.larimer.org/emergency/. For road closures due to the fire, go to larimersheriff.org/site-page/high-park-fire-road-information .

For those wondering how long it will take to return to their homes, after containment is reached, it takes at least 24 hours for a burned area to cool down enough for evaluation to begin to determine if people can enter the evacuated areas, according to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department.

TheNational Wildfire Coordinating Group says “containment” refers to how much of the fire is surrounded by control lines or breaks. The 1,911 personnel working on the fire on a 24-hour schedule — approximately the population of the town of LaSalle — have constructed 49 miles of fire lines so far, assisted by 17 helicopters dropping water and retardant. The copters have also been transporting people and supplies to the fire lines.

Meetings will also be held on Wednesday for those who have evacuated livestock and large animals currently housed at The Ranch, the Larimer County fairgrounds complex, at I-25 and Crossroads Boulevard. The meetings will be held at 4 and 6 p.m. in the grandstands of the Ranch-Way Feeds Indoor Arena; residents need to attend only one. The Ranch staff, Larimer County Sheriff’s Posse, Larimer Humane Society and CSU Ambulatory Vets will be available to answer questions regarding logistics and operations. They will also discuss animal care and how to better serve the animals on site, get feedback from those using the facilities at The Ranch, and plan for future meetings.

The current cost of fighting the fire is estimated at $17.2 million.

At their Tuesday morning meeting, on the advice of the Larimer County sheriff and area fire chiefs, the Board of Larimer County Commissioners expanded exisiting restrictions on open fires, contained open fires and the sale and use of fireworks and public fireworks displays for the unincorporated areas of Larimer County through Sept. 30. The full text of the restrictions is available at www.larimer.org.

The High Park Fire Disaster Recovery Center on the Colorado State University Campus at Johnson Hall is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

More information is available at the Larimer County Emergency Information line at 970-498-5500, on Twitter @larimersheriff, or Inciweb at www.inciweb.org/incident/2904/.

For the latest updated map of the High Park Fire, go to
larimer.org/highparkfire/highpark_0618_2300.pdf