Grizzly Creek Fire 2020 (Glenwood Canyon)

[DaveInDenver]

There's a fire in Glenwood Canyon that started a few days ago.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6942/

Jumped I-70 and the Colorado River yesterday and burned up hill towards Hubbard Cave. Looks like it ran over FS408.1, so into the area where the Rising Sun had an adopted road at Deadman's Creek.

 

[nuclearlemon]

i remember a couple cleanups out there way back in the day.

 

[Stuckinthe80s]

Smelled like a cookout when I walked out of my house a little bit ago. I'm assuming it is from this fire? Crazy!

 

[DaveInDenver]

Smelled like a cookout when I walked out of my house a little bit ago. I'm assuming it is from this fire? Crazy!

You guys are getting smoke from Grizzly Creek, the big one north of Grand Junction (Pine Gulch), Fawn Creek and several smaller fires around here.

The Pine Gulch last Sunday at about 30,000 acres as I recall. It's since grown quite a bit. It's mapped at 68,000 acres this morning although the official size is still 59,000 on Inciweb.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6906/

 

[DaveInDenver]

The prevailing winds have been from the west for a while. It's really bad as it stokes the fires but it has kept the smoke out of town. The wind died yesterday morning and it was like a fog here at the house.

 

[RayRay27]

Read an article in the Aspen Times that truckers are trying to drive over Independence Pass because the canyon is closed.

https://www.aspentimes.com/news/gle...pendence-pass-which-is-not-allowed-for-semis/

 

[DouglasVB]

Maybe it's time to come up with an I-72 concept... run it parallel to I-70 to Grand Junction but either north or south. Seems like that section of freeway is always getting shut down. Would be a good idea to have a better backup plan than sending truck traffic into southern Coloado.

 

[Notyourmomslx450]

Even though it would be way out of the way and a huge pain in the butt, the truckers need to head N or S and hit I-80 or I-40

 

[DaveInDenver]

Maybe it's time to come up with an I-72 concept... run it parallel to I-70 to Grand Junction but either north or south. Seems like that section of freeway is always getting shut down. Would be a good idea to have a better backup plan than sending truck traffic into southern Coloado.

What you describe are I-40 and I-80. There's already US40 and US50 as east-west Federal highways in the mountains that do the best that can be done without essentially in today's world an impossible amount of new earth work and tunneling.

Colorado started working on I-70 in 1955 with the first length handling traffic in 1961. It took 37 years to complete what's there now as I-70 wasn't completely a 4 lane Interstate until Glenwood Canyon was done in 1992. That length of the original US6 was the last link of the whole Interstate system to be completed.

 

[nuclearlemon]

i-80!!! they should all take i-80...then they should stop at mccandless in cheyenne and get all their services and repair work done

 

[Inukshuk]

CDOT closed independence pass!

 

[RayRay27]

CDOT closed independence pass!

 

[mcgaskins]

CDOT closed independence pass!

They actually closed it yesterday midday. I found out just before I was leaving Grand Junction heading to Denver, so I had to take 50 to 285 to get home which added about 2 hours drive time. It wasn't too bad though with the windows down and the sunroof open with stars overhead (when there wasn't smoke of course!).

 

[DaveInDenver]

Loop of visible satellite imagery of the fires.

 

[AlpineAccess]

Thanks for posting @DaveInDenver

That pattern puts smoke right on us here in Loveland, and I think the Cameron peak area fire is pushing south east so we are getting that here as well.

We need rain!

 

[Hulk]

It's crazy smoky here today in the south Denver metro area.

 

[RayRay27]

We live in the Thornton area and my wife has a black car. This morning you could see that it was covered in ash.

 

[Notyourmomslx450]

We live in the Thornton area and my wife has a black car. This morning you could see that it was covered in ash.

I’m at 92nd and Hwy 36 In Westminster had ash on my vehicles as well.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Grizzly Creek has grown to 19,500 acres.

The Pine Gulch north of GJ is 74,300 acres now. This is now the 5th largest wildfire in Colorado history surpassing the 2002 Missionary Ridge. Seems likely to get to High Park, which was 87,000 acres since Pine Gulch remains at 7% containment. Although it's only grew a couple of hundred acres yesterday so they may be hemming it.

 

[Corbet]

It’s been smoky down here as well but not sure who’s smoke it is. Just happy that for now we are not on fire for a change. They need to put the burn ban back in place.