http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1150591197/3
Fires near Holly burn more than 15,000 acres
By ANTHONY A. MESTAS
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
HOLLY - By the time the smoke cleared Thursday, more than 15,000 acres of parched grasslands and two abandoned structures across wildfire-stricken Southeastern Colorado lay in ruins.
Nineteen fires ignited near this small town Thursday destroying an abandoned house and a garage. No one was injured.
A few fires were still smoldering Friday, but were contained.
Marvin Rosencrans, Prowers County rural fire chief, said Friday that initially 15 fires were reported with 10,000 acres being torched, but after talking with officials Friday, the number of fires increased to 19 engulfing nearly 15,000 acres of rangeland. "It's hard to communicate all the facts when you are in the middle of a fire zone - our information did not come across correctly, but there were indeed 19 total fires reported Thursday," Rosencrans said.
Severe drought set the stage for the fires, which authorities said were started by lightning. Flames raced through a 25-mile strip of grass dried out by the region's worst drought in several years.
The hardest-hit area during Thursday's blazes was on Highway 89 and Road DE five miles south of Holly where 3,000 acres of grass burned threatening this small community of about 1,000 people some 20 miles east of Lamar.
"We had eight or nine areas of housing and farms that were threatened - these fires were not all just over open country. Holly had the most threat, but firefighters controlled the situation and saved those areas," Rosencrans said.
"That fire was the one we were most concerned about coming into a town - on that fire we had an abandoned house and a garage that burned," he added.
Rosencrans said that fire jumped the highway from the west to the east side, then the wind switched and it jumped from the east to the west.
The highway was shut down for about five hours Thursday. The 3,000-acre fire started at about 2:30 p.m., Rosencrans said.
There were about 1,000 head of cattle close to the fire.
"They were on the west side of the fire and when the wind switched we got real concerned. At one point I thought we were going to have to cut the fence and get the cattle out of there."
Elsewhere throughout the fire zone, several fence posts and farm equipment were destroyed and up to four uncut wheat fields were scorched.
"Most of the plants we lost were range grass," Rosencrans said, noting that some fencing had also been destroyed.
The first report of a fire came at 1:45 p.m. with the others following almost every 20 minutes. The last fire ignited at about 8 p.m., but was quickly doused.
Rosencrans said several of the smaller fires joined together at certain points, but never threatened populated areas.
Rosencrans said that some of the fires were left unattended because there weren't enough firefighters in the area to help.
"We were unable to get to some of these fires so we had to call other counties in - once a fire was put out those crews would help with another," Rosencrans said.
"A lot of that area was rough country with a lot of ravines and canyons. We couldn't access everything. There are no roads in some of those areas and that really dampened things," Rosencrans said.
Wind gusting to 60 mph drove the flames close to the Kansas State line.
"We had some pretty major blazes. There were flame heights of nearly 40 feet and at times there were as much as two to three miles of fire line - it was a mess, cacti and sage were just exploding," Rosencrans said.
About 150 civilians and firefighters assisted.
Colorado firefighters from Holly, Bristol, Granada, Walsh, Baca County-Springfield, Towner, Kiowa County, Hasty McClave, Las Animas-Bent County and Prowers County responded. Kansas firefighters from Hamilton County, Syracuse, Coolidge County, Stanton County and Johnson also responded.
Farmers and water tankers from Kansas and Colorado, and Prowers County Road and Bridge also assisted.
