The NCAR fire along the southwestern edge of Boulder grew to 189 acres overnight and is now 21% contained, authorities said Sunday morning.
Fire crews plan to reinforce containment lines Sunday and are optimistic that more of Saturday’s evacuations will be lifted if weather and fire conditions remain favorable, incident commander Mike Smith said during a morning news conference.
“Right now we’re in a good position,” Smith said. “The wind speeds are nothing like they were with the Marshall fire. As long as the weather does what it is supposed to do today, then tomorrow we will be in good shape.”
The wildfire began around 2 p.m. Saturday near the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and forced evacuations in south Boulder and the Eldorado Springs area. No one has been hurt and no structures have burned.
Late Saturday, the evacuation area shrunk to include only about 700 houses and 1,600 people, down from about 19,400 people evacuated at the height of the fire, according to the Boulder Office of Emergency Management.
The Devil’s Thumb neighborhood in south Boulder — immediately east of the fire — and Eldorado Springs remained evacuated. The full evacuation map can be seen here.
About 200 firefighters from 30 agencies attacked the blaze Saturday and about 110 are expected to continue fighting the fire Sunday, Smith said. Winds in the area were initially expected to be southwesterly but are now expected to blow west and northwest, he said, which could create the need for additional evacuations.
“We have a plan in place to create more evacuations; our hope is we do not have to do any of those,” Smith said. He said authorities hope to “get people back into their homes as quickly as we can.”
Officials had estimated the fire to be roughly 200 acres in size Sunday morning, but later said an aerial survey showed it had grown overnight to 189 acres.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Officials know the fire began in the northwest corner of the burn area, Smith said. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.
Smith said firefighters were aided by previous fire mitigation work in the burn area, and said crews aim to “corral the fire up into the rocks and snow” on Sunday to ensure it doesn’t move further toward the city.
The NCAR fire began just three months after the Marshall fire, which started in Boulder County in late December and was driven east by hurricane-force winds, destroying more than 1,000 homes. Smith, who was also in charge of the firefighting response for the Marshall fire, said the two fires are “different animals.”
“One of the things we learned from the Marshall fire was how to rapidly escalate and integrate multiple agencies and get them to work together,” he said. “We had a much more seamless process on this one. We saw an improvement from Marshall, but it’s a little bit of apples and oranges.”
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