{"id":104059,"date":"2017-08-18T11:37:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T17:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-destroys-shop-causes-explosions-south-of-cortez\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T11:37:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T17:37:28","slug":"fire-destroys-shop-causes-explosions-south-of-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-destroys-shop-causes-explosions-south-of-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire destroys shop, causes explosions south of Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An unattended burn pile triggered a grass fire Thursday afternoon that destroyed a shop and nearly burned down a residence.<\/span>Cortez Fire Protection District<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A violent fire south of Cortez on Thursday evening destroyed a shop and nearly burned down a residence.<\/p>\n

An unattended burn pile that got out of control in windy conditions sparked dry grass, then quickly spread to a wood pile and the shop, said Cortez Fire Protection District Chief Jeff Vandevoorde.<\/p>\n

Vandevoorde was heading home for the day about 5 p.m. when he responded to an area of heavy black smoke at 6679 U.S. Highway 160, south of County Road G.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was fire everywhere, and explosions were coming from the shop from gasoline cans, ammunition and tires,\u201d Vandevoorde said.<\/p>\n

Cortez fire crews arrived in five minutes of the emergency call and quickly doused the grass fire and the corner of a residence that had begun to burn, saving the home. A nearby shed was also saved. There were no injuries, but the shop and Ford Bronco inside were a total loss.<\/p>\n

The grass fire also approached a neighbor\u2019s home, singeing their fence, but it was put out by fire crews in time.<\/p>\n

The fire began when property owner Gary Herra was burning refuse in a hole. When he went inside to call dispatch about the burn, the wind pushed the fire into some dry grass, and it quickly spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cDispatch should, of course, be called in advance,\u201d Vandevoorde said.<\/p>\n

There were no burning restrictions Thursday, but controlled burns should not be started in windy conditions or left unattended without a ready water source, he said.<\/p>\n

Fire crews and equipment from Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, Lewis and Towaoc responded to the fire, which was extinguished by 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could have been worse. Nobody got hurt, and we had a lot of help from our mutual aid neighbors,\u201d Vandevoorde said.<\/p>\n

The Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office also responded to the fire. No citations were issued.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unattended burn pile triggers grass fire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,350,13,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-fire","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104059"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}