West Fork Fire West Update -- June 24, 8 p.m.A community meeting in Pagosa Springs has been scheduled for Saturday June 29, at 1 p.m.
This is day 6 of Red Flag warnings. Clouds over the fire area this afternoon helped to moderate some of the fire behavior. This morning, the size of the entire complex, including the West Fork, Windy Gap and Papoose fires is 75,150 acres.
Today, members of the Colorado National Guard will be joining the fire fighting effort providing added security and staffing roadblocks.
West Zone West Fork Fire: The West Zone of the West Fork fire is the portion of the fire burning south of the continental divide. There was not a lot of movement on the south end of fire today though the south west corner continues to have some active burning. Firefighters are about 90 percent complete with their work installing a sprinkler system to protect Bruce Spruce Resort and other structures along West Fork Road today and they will be completing and testing the system tomorrow. Structure protection remains in place for Borns Lake.
Windy Pass Fire: The Windy Pass Fire had some active burning primarily within the existing fire perimeter. Crews continued to work on contingency lines protecting the Wolf Creek Ski Area and also reinforced the contingency line on the south end from about 3 miles east along East Fork Road to U.S. 160. Firefighters continue to protect Wolf Creek Ski Area.
Evacuations: Pre-evacuation notices are in place for West Fork road and along East Fork road.
Closures: Again, there are multiple road and trail closures; the primary one in the West Zone is Highway 160 from just north of the chain-up area to the town of South Fork.
For additional information on road and trail closures affecting the:
San Juan National Forest, go to http://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/sanjuan/alerts-notices
Rio Grande National Forest, http://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/riogrande/alerts-notices
For highway closures, go to http://www.cotrip.org/roadConditions.htm
