A wildfire on the edge of metro Denver has crept within a quarter-mile of evacuated homes
A wildfire on the edge of metro Denver crept within a quarter-mile of evacuated homes, but authorities said Thursday they were hopeful that hundreds of threatened residences could be saved as they grapple with sweltering temperatures and firefighters suffering heat exhaustion.
The fire was among several threatening heavily populated areas of the Colorado foothills, including one in which a person was killed earlier this week.
Almost 100 large fires are burning across the western U.S. The largest — Northern California’s Park Fire — has burned more than 400 houses and other structures, officials reported Thursday.
New large fires were reported in Idaho, southeast Montana and north Texas.
The Quarry Fire southwest of the Denver suburb of Littleton encroached on several large subdivisions. Neighborhoods with nearly 600 homes were ordered to evacuate after the fire — of unknown origin — spread quickly Tuesday afternoon and overnight when relatively few firefighters were yet on the scene.
By Thursday afternoon, firefighting aircraft zipped back and forth between the blaze and a nearby reservoir. Planes skimmed the surface to scoop up water and hovering helicopters pumped water into their tanks, before the aircraft would return to the fire to dump their loads.
