Update, 8/10/2020: Pine Gulch’s fireplace has grown to more than 25,000 acres until the end of Sunday night.
Sunday was another tricky day of hot, dry situations for teams watching the very active Pine Gulch fireplace that burned north of Grand Junction.
The fire, burning in Mesa and Garfield counties, rose to more than 2,000 acres on Saturday night. That’s only about 24,000 acres, or about 37 square miles.
On Saturday, Garfield County issued an evacuation order for the small number of apartments on the two hundred and 202 county highways and, as the chimney continues to move northeast, a pre-evacuation order for all apartments on County Highways 204, 207, 209 and Clear Creek Road.
Fire district chief Mike Harvey of the De Beque fire protection district encouraged local citizens to pack up and be able to leave at any time.
Garfield officials say there are about 8 homes on County Road 204. The workers’ emergency control corps visited others in those homes on Friday night to discuss the chimney and preparations for evacuation.
“It can also help firefighters move cars away from home, move piles of flammable wood. You can definitely start with the weed around your house,” Harvey said.
He also encouraged the citizens of the domain to begin drawing up evacuation plans for giant animals such as horses.
Firefighter crews spent much of the weekend on the chimney site lines. The chimney site is now contained at 7%. Approximately 500 other people are in the domain running at the chimney site.
Wind conditions, which temporarily propagate the chimney site and hinder containment, are expected to decrease in the coming days, but that means the chimney site will be easy to control. Officials said sage weeds and low humidity would continue to feed the chimney site.
The National Weather Service’s Lisa Kriederman incident meteorologist said several were lined up for the Pine Gulch fire.
“We are currently in a severe drought. We have been in very high temperatures in recent years since the last week of July; we’ve had temperatures above the general ones in this area, as well as in the general rains,” Kriederman said.
He also said he had recently set low humidity records.
“We just don’t have moisture in the atmosphere. And it’s happening to be transferred to the fuels. So our shrubs, our trees, the big forests, all that dry air is passing to be transferred to them. And they go close or record low humidity values,” Kriederman said.
The federally administered site, Inciweb, said Sunday that the chimney would continue to move north to more houses and structures.
The westerly winds will bring #PineGulchFire smoke to the east for the next few days. Expect a raised plume on I-70 in the afternoons, then smoke that settles in the mountains at night and in Denver expires in the afternoon/morning. Health impacts: https://t.co/l5cwYNlIel#cowx pic.twitter.com/HjbBcjOuRB
Both counties are subject to place restrictions for Level 1 chimneys and the National Weather Service has issued an air quality alert due to dense smoke near the chimney site. The smell of smoke is in the air in Grand Junction. The weather service said Sunday that the winds will push smoke from the Pine Gulch chimney site to the east over the next few days.
“Expect a top column above I-70 in the afternoon, then smoke that settles in the mountains at night and in Denver expires in the afternoon/morning,” the National Weather Service in Boulder said in a tweet.
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