Officials said they are fully expecting 500 homes or more to be lost due to the fires.<\/b>
\nColorado officials said Friday that no fatalities have been reported at the moment after devastating wildfires tore through the state. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said at a news conference alongside Governor Jared Polis and others that so far no loss of life has been indicated, despite some residents having a very small window of time to evacuate. „We still have no reports of casualties or fatalities,“ Pelle told reporters. „The one missing person we had last night has been accounted for as well. So that’s awesome news and actually, I think given the events that we had yesterday, pretty miraculous.“ Thousands of residents were forced to flee their homes Thursday night. While the official cause of the fires has yet to be confirmed, officials suspect it may have been prompted by power lines. While damage assessment remains ongoing, Pelle said they are „fully expecting“ there to be 500 or more homes that were lost due to the fires. „We may have our own New Year’s miracle on our hands if it holds up that there was no loss of life,“ Polis said. „We know that many people had just minutes to evacuate and if that was successfully pulled off by all the affected families, that’s really quite a testimony to preparedness and emergency response.“ This is a developing story and will be updated with more information as it becomes available.<\/p>\n