Tens of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes outside Denver, with wildfires fueled by winds of over 100 mph covering parts of two cities and burning about 580 homes, a hotel and a mall.
At least seven were injured in fires that began Thursday morning in an unusual way following a particularly dry fall and an almost snowless winter.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pell admitted that more injuries as well as deaths could occur due to the intensity of the fires that are spreading rapidly in the area.
Residents of the towns of Louisville and Superior began evacuating in the morning as the fire became known.
The two cities are located about 32 km northwest of Denver, and are home to 34,000 people. The neighboring towns are surrounded by shopping centers, parks and schools. The fire area itself is located between Denver and Boulder, a college town at the foot of the hills where the University of Colorado is located. Calmly and neatly and small fires popped up here and there in surprising places - on grass or in the bin in the middle of a parking lot - when gusts of wind caused it to spread.
Documentation of the fire that spread across Colorado, Photo: No credit
Leah Angstman, who was on her way home from Denver International Airport, said "the wind shook the bus so hard I thought it would overturn. The sky was dark, dark brown, and the dirt was swirling across the sidewalk like snakes."
She claimed the visibility was so poor that the bus had to stop and wait half an hour until a local Transport Authority pickup truck arrived to rescue them.
A satellite photo showing the spread of fire in Colorado, Photo: AFP
A second fire, reported shortly after 11 a.m., spread rapidly eastward and currently covers 6.5 square kilometers. Some of the fires in the area were caused by downed power lines. The fires led Governor Jared Polis to declare a state of emergency, allowing the state to file a petition. Emergency budget assistance to deal with the disaster.
The Colorado mountain range, where most of the state's population lives, has had a particularly dry fall and the winter so far has continued to be mostly dry.
Denver has set a record for most consecutive days without snow, before a storm hit the area on Dec. 10.
It has not snowed since, despite the forecasts.
This is a result of global warming and scientists have explained that such phenomena will continue to intensify in the future.
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