<\/p>\n
Crews from multiple agencies including the Dove Creek Volunteer Fire Department, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service worked Tuesday to contain a brush fire west of Cahone.<\/p>\n
Ground and air crews responded Monday night with support as the fire burned near the end of County Road N a few miles west of U.S. Highway 491 in Dolores County.<\/p>\n
A helicopter and two single-engine air tankers called in by Durango Dispatch dropped retardant on the fire on Monday evening, according to Grant Allen of the Dove Creek Fire Department.<\/p>\n
About 50 firefighters were on the ground Monday night, including crews from Pleasant View, Dove Creek, Egnar and the Forest Service, Allen said. About a dozen fire engines and several tankers were deployed.<\/p>\n
Allen estimated on Monday night that the fire was burning in 80 acres of brush. However, after the smoke cleared on Tuesday morning, a GPS estimate on the ground put the fire\u2019s footprint at 21 acres, said Patrick Seekins, fire management officer of the Dolores Ranger District of the San Juan National Forest.<\/p>\n
Seekins estimated that ground crews would finish fire lines and fully contain the fire Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
He credited a heavy and fast response for the crews\u2019 success. \u201cWe had a lot of aviation,\u201d Seekins said.<\/p>\n
No structures were burned, Allen said, and the nearest home and outbuilding were about a half mile away.<\/p>\n
A Colorado multi-mission aircraft was expected to conduct a flyover on Tuesday morning to map the fire, using a Pilatus PC-12 airplane outfitted with infrared and color sensors and operated by the state Division of Fire Prevention and Control. On Tuesday, fire officials conducted a GPS estimate of the fire instead.<\/p>\n
Firefighters were called to the scene about 5 p.m. Monday. The fire began in pi\u00f1on-juniper brush around Alkali Draw, then quickly spread north-northeast, fed by south-southwest winds, said Seekins.<\/p>\n
The fire was blamed on a lightning strike. Allen reported that Dove Creek firefighters extinguished a \u201clittle smoker\u201d on Sunday after a strike, but that a flyover in the afternoon failed to find evidence of another fire.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service forecasts continued dry, hot weather through Monday, with daytime high temperatures in the upper 80s and overnight lows in the lower 50s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Containment of fire expected Tuesday afternoon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99394","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=99394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99394"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}