Colorado officials said on Friday that it was a “miracle” that no deaths were reported in a rare urban wildfire that moved at breakneck speeds …
Colorado officials said on Friday that it was a “miracle” that no deaths were reported in a rare urban wildfire that moved at breakneck speeds across towns north of Denver, destroying upward of 1,000 homes. The fire was driven by wind gusts of 105 miles per hour (169 km per hour), which caused flames to leapfrog over highways and entire neighborhoods on Thursday, authorities said. The winds created a mosaic burn pattern that saw untouched homes standing next to those left in ashes. Officials said on Friday that winds had died down and snow was arriving, and that they did not expect the fire to pose any more danger. Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab at Colorado University whose research focuses on fire ecology, lives just a few miles from the fire zone and said the blaze was shocking for many reasons. She headed out on a walk Friday morning, attempting to get a better vantage point to see the fire’s damage. “I was smelling smoke, and there’s snowflakes hitting my cheeks.
