Colorado Daily Snow

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By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 10 years ago June 21, 2013

This photo was sent in by a commenter on the previous post, and it was too incredible not to re-post.

West fork fire from the air

He was on an NYC-LAX flight Thursday night and flew near the West Fork Fire. The smaller plume of smoke in the foreground is from the Windy Pass fire near Wolf Creek Ski Area. This fire didn't spread too much and the ski area is still safe.

The massive plume of smoke and pyrocumulus clouds is from the main West Fork Fire. Eric Norton, Fire Behavior Analyst for the NIMO Team, said “The fire behavior we saw Thursday was so extreme, it was undocumented and unprecedented.” The fire more than doubled in size going from 12,001 acres to close to 29,000 acres on Thursday.

The town of South Fork is being evacuated.

Hoping that nobody gets hurt and loss of structures is minimized. That said, fire is a natural occurrence in Colorado and this one was started by lightning and burning beetle kill trees. Doesn't get much more natural than that. Here's a link to all active fires in the state.

JOEL GRATZ

About Our Forecaster

Joel Gratz

Founding Meteorologist

Joel Gratz is the Founding Meteorologist of OpenSnow and has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 2003. Before moving to Colorado, he spent his childhood as a (not very fast) ski racer in eastern Pennsylvania.

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