<\/p>\n
A brush fire Friday along U.S. Highway 160\/491 south of Cortez threatened several homes, but no structures were lost, fire officials said.<\/p>\n
The cause of the fire was unknown late Friday, but appeared to start at the highway.<\/p>\n
By 8 p.m. the fire was controlled and has a good perimeter around it, said Cortez Fire Protection District Chief Jay Balfour. It had grown to about 30 acres.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire behavior was erratic, and the winds pushed into some heavy brush, but we got a handle on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fire crews conducted successful structure protection on several nearby homes, Balfour said.<\/p>\n
Other crews dug hand lines and negotiated through rough ravines and a tangle of vegetation and trees. Two fire hydrants nearby provided water that was shuttled to the fire line.<\/p>\n
Earlier, 30-foot high flames could be seen, and neighbors looked on with concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, everybody is alright,\u201d said neighbor Sharon Palmer.<\/p>\n
Local rancher Todd Ehlert saw the initial smoke and jumped on his ATV to investigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was bad. Then a lot of firetrucks arrived, and I opened all the gates for them,\u201d he said. \u201cThey did their job protecting the homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire sparked about 3:30 p.m. and quickly spread in dry vegetation. It appeared to start near the highway and came within yards of a home. Balfour said the fire area will be patrolled to prevent a flare up, and the point of origin is being investigated.<\/p>\n
A portion of U.S. 160\/491 was closed, the Colorado Department of Transportation said. By 6 p.m. traffic was moving normally.<\/p>\n
By 5 p.m., the fire had grown to 2 or 3 acres, Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin said.<\/p>\n
The fire began near mile marker 33, Nowlin said. Winds were blowing the smoke east.<\/p>\n
Multiple local agencies responded to the fire, including Cortez Fire Protection District, Dolores Fire Department, Mancos Fire Department, Lewis-Arriola Fire Protection District, Ute Mountain Fire Department, the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Bureau of Land Management, and Southwest Health System ambulance.<\/p>\n
Lisa Schwantes, spokeswoman for CDOT, said the fire appeared to start in a ditch at mile marker 33.5, about a mile south of the turnoff for the Cortez Municipal Airport.<\/p>\n
The highway initially was closed in both directions, but by 4 p.m. motorists were allowed through in one lane, Schwantes said.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Romeo contributed to this article. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fast-moving blaze threatens several homes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5738,5740,5737,5736,5735,5741,5807,5864,5756],"tags":[21,13,28,29,557,69,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cortez","category-frontpage-lead","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-traffic","category-u-s-highway-160","category-wildfire","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-traffic","tag-u-s-highway-160","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64568","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=64568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91923,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64568\/revisions\/91923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64568"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}