Author: KRDO

Michael Logerwell

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) – Tonight, the public got to hear firsthand from the fire management team working the “Aspen Acres” fire.

→ Stay informed on the “Aspen Acres” wildfire here with links to live evacuation maps and the latest coverage from KRDO

The meeting started at 7:00 p.m. at Centennial High School in Pueblo and was held by the Alaska Complex Incident Management Team.

You can find a recording of the meeting here.

While the meeting was informative, it didn’t do anything to calm the frayed nerves of those forced to evacuate by the “Aspen Acres” fire.

“I never dreamed in a million years I’d see a fire of this magnitude so close to Rye, endangering so many properties and homes,” Duane Fink, a long-time Rye resident said.

Speaking at the meeting was a meteorologist, fire fuel expert and strategist, all part of the Alaskan management team. Plus the Pueblo County Sheriff, members of the U.S. Forest Service and a spokesperson for the local energy cooperative.

Several residents who spoke to KRDO13 said they were upset with some of the news that was shared at the meeting. A major point that was hammered home was how big and dangerous the “Aspen Acres” fire truly is.

“It’s not going to be the same there. You know, especially if my properties burn, it won’t ever be the same. You know,” Fink paused, “One place was my brother’s. The other was my dad’s. So, yeah, it’s a legacy, is what it is. It ain’t just land.”

Click here to follow the original article.

Bradley Davis

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – Unlike its neighbors, Williamsburg was not under pre-evacuation orders Sunday night.

→ Full coverage on the Aspen Acres wildfire, including links to the latest evacuation maps

“It was scary. I was sitting on the recliner just eating ice cream, playing with the dog, and all the sudden, his phone is ringing, telling us to evacuate immediately. And we’re just kind of like, ‘Are you sure?'” Williamsburg resident Pamela Fleener said.

Fleener and her partner, Alex Aguirre, received the call just after 8 p.m. Sunday night that they were to evacuate immediately.

“We listened to it multiple times to make sure,” Aguirre said.

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office ordered its first mandatory evacuations on Sunday in response to the “Aspen Acres” fire after the flames made a strong push north. The “Aspen Acres” fire Incident Command said strong winds from a passing thunderstorm stoked the fire in Fremont County’s direction.

“No, yeah, we weren’t ready,” Fleener said.

Fleener and Aguirre joined their evacuated neighbors from Coal Creek, Rockvale and the surrounding communities at the Red Cross Wildfire Shelter at Pathfinder Park in Florence.

“It’s been hectic. We slept in the truck. It was hot and cramped, but we’re safe,” Fleener said.

Fleener and Aguirre said they had to leave a lot behind in their haste, but they made it out with what mattered most.

“A puppy and three kittens,” Aguirre said.

“That’s a handful!” KRDO13’s Bradley Davis said.

“Ohhh yeah,” Aguirre said, while chuckling.

The “Aspen Acres” fire grew to over 91,000 acres Sunday night. It’s the seventh-largest wildfire in Colorado’s history. The acreage growth dropped the containment from 14% to 12%.

Click here to follow the original article.

Scott Harrison

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo, (KRDO) — Despite fire crews increasing containment from zero to 14% in the “Aspen Acres” fire over the weekend, the intensity of flames on the north side of the burn zone raised the risk to residents north of the Custer/Fremont County line.

→ Find the latest information from KRDO on the Aspen Acres wildfire here

As a result, authorities elevated the status from pre-evacuation to mandatory evacuation late Sunday along ten miles of Highway 67 from just south of Florence in Fremont County to the junction of Highway 96, near Wetmore in Custer County.

Flames were visible in the distance before dawn Monday from the newest checkpoint on Highway 67 at the County Road 100 intersection.

Just before noon, National Guard personnel moved the checkpoint farther south to the County Road 15 intersection — where the previous checkpoint had been when the area had been on pre-evacuation status last Thursday.

“We got the mandatory evacuation order around 8 Sunday night,” said evacuee Dave Smith. “It was a bit surprising, but we were prepared for it. It’s a mess, but it happens.”

Many evacuees evacuated so suddenly that they didn’t have time to transport or tend to livestock, and when they tried to return on Monday morning, they weren’t allowed in unless they had prior approval.

Smith was unable to return because he lives within the evacuation zone, but a neighbor, Bill Enoch, was allowed to come back because he lives on the zone’s northern border along County Road 100.

“I know a lot of people,” he explained. “But I’m not too concerned on how it’s going. If I get in, I get in. If I don’t, I don’t.”

A local couple returned from a weeklong trip out of town to learn of the evacuation; they had to wait at least 30 minutes to get a state trooper to escort them to their property.

Other evacuees tried to be more patient and understanding.

“I’m not frustrated,” said Dave Falske. “I know everybody’s doing the best they can –the military, the police, me — just trying to hang on. But we do have stock up there, and I need to get them fed one way or the other.”

A factor in the change to a mandatory evacuation was an increase in the fire’s intensity Sunday, when strong winds from a passing thunderstorm pushed flames dangerously close to Wetmore.

Authorities used bulldozers to create fire breaks to protect homes and other structures before winds died down.

It’s the second time since Thursday that crews scrambled to keep the fire out of Wetmore.

More resources also were needed on the east side of the fire, near Siloam Road, north of Highway 78; in the Beulah area, which has been constantly threatened; and southwest of Colorado City and Rye, into Huerfano County.

Some of the latter areas are in either pre-evacuation or mandatory evacuation status.

Around 1,100 firefighters from across the county are fighting the “Aspen Acres” fire.

Click here to follow the original article.

Scott Harrison

PUEBLO & CUSTER COUNTIES, Colo. (KRDO) — KRDO 13 has a crew in southern Pueblo County to provide an update on the Aspen Acres wildfire, which has burned nearly 87,000 acres.

For the first time, authorities report some containment — 6% late Saturday night, and up to 13% as of 7 a.m. Sunday.

→ Most up to date coverage on the Aspen Acres wildfire, including links to the latest evacuation maps

Fire crews made the first containment on the east side of the burn zone, near Highway 78.

The checkpoint on Highway 165 has been moved east from Crow Cutoff and is now at the Interstate 25 interchange.

Businesses on both sides of the interchange were closed — including two gas stations — as is the rest area.

Many drivers through the area are vacationers unaware of the fire and disappointed at being unable to turn east onto Highway 165.

Members of the Colorado National Guard are now manning the checkpoints at road closures to release state troopers and Pueblo County deputies for other duties.

Smoke is thick in the fire zone as of 8 a.m. Sunday.

KRDO 13 spoke with a Rye resident who evacuated on Tuesday and said that his home still stands.

More than 800 personnel from across the country are fighting the fire in Pueblo and Custer counties, while southern Fremont County remains on pre-evacuation status and a segment of the north end of Huerfano County, near Colorado City, remains on mandatory evacuation.

KRDO will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Click here to follow the original article.

Bradley Davis

FOUNTAIN, Colo. (KRDO) – The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office has lifted an evacuation for homes between both the North and South intersections of Jordan Road and Old Pueblo Road in Fountain.

Officials sent the evacuation notice over Peak Alerts. It is now safe to return to the area.

Click here to follow the original article.

Michael Logerwell

PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – For days, firefighters from all over the country have been working to protect people and structures put at risk by the Aspen Acres Fire.

“There’s not really a way to explain very simply how humbling extreme wildfire behavior can be,” Nicholai Allen, a wildlands firefighter, told KRDO13 over a Zoom Video Call on Friday.

→ Find the most up to date information on the Aspen Acres wildfire here

Allen would be the one to know. He has firsthand experience as a wildland firefighter. Allen was part of a squad designated to protect homes in the Palisades fire that burned up parts of California in 2025.

He says it’s a cumulation of factors that make fighting an extreme wildfire like the Aspen Acres Fire challenging.

“It’s not just the direct fire front. It’s the low visibility, the toxic smoke in the air, ” Allen said. “I would say that it is the most uncomfortable, always on super high adrenaline, job that I’ve ever done.” Even without the fire, Allen points out that hiking through a rugged mountainous region in high wind conditions with all the fire gear would be challenging.

Added on top of that is the long hours. Fires don’t take breaks, and Allen says it’s not uncommon for wildland firefighters to work shifts of 24 hours or longer.

“I’d usually eat, like, only one time a day, maybe some snacks here and there, as it’s allowed. But very often when you get into it and if you’re doing structure triage and trying to, help people evacuate and save homes, you’re not really thinking about eating at all, or sleeping,” Allen said.

Surprisingly, Allen says he hasn’t found it too difficult to sleep because the work of a wildland firefighter is so exhausting. Every wildland fire is different, but Allen says typically a trailer is brought in to a safe zone further away from the front line where firefighters can sleep in their off-shift.

When not fighting fires, Allen says he works to educate homeowners on how to keep their homes fire safe. He encourages mitigation work around the home and warns that it’s not always the big wall fire that will ignite your property. It can be small embers that float into your home.

Click here to follow the original article.

Heather Skold

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — The song, “America the Beautiful,” is woven into the fabric of our very patriotism in the United States: its imagery, its faith, its call for oneness. 

Written in 1893 by the poet and English professor Katharine Lee Bates, it expresses gratitude while also being aspirational. 

Katharine Lee Bates, Courtesy of Regional History & Genealogy, Pikes Peak Library District, 102-354

Bates was born shortly before the Civil War started, and thus, many of her writings focused on social reform.  

A professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Bates decided to venture west to teach for the summer at Colorado College.

“This was a business trip, where she spent several weeks in Colorado Springs,” said Matt Mayberry, Director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, outside which Bates’ iron statue sits, facing Pikes Peak. “She thinks as a poet, and she processes her reality as a poet. Her travels west inspired her and became part of the poem.”

Bates had never been west of Philadelphia at that point in her life, but her travels by train created inspiration: patriotism on display at the World’s Fair in Chicago, the prairies of Kansas, and the “sublimity of the Rockies.”

“It was with this quickened and deepened sense of America that we went on, my New England eyes delighting in the wind-waved gold of the vast wheat fields,” she wrote, in an article published in a 1928 edition of the Gazette and Telegraph. 

Colorado Springs Gazette and Telegraph, Dec. 30, 1928

She and her colleagues were shown Manitou Springs, Cascade, and Garden of the Gods — “all so marvelous that our stock of exclamations ran out.”

One day, she and her teacher friends ventured up Pikes Peak, via “prairie schooner,” pulled by horses that were traded out with mules halfway. 

Once at the top, they were advised against jumping out of the wagon, but instead “descend leisurely” due to the altitude, a warning that befell their guide, who himself fainted at the summit and curtailed their visit to 30 minutes. 

The brief view at 14,115 feet was enough to bring a sense of awe to Bates, who wrote of its “purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.”

That night, upon returning to the Antlers Hotel, Bates wrote the first lines of her poem.  She made several revisions to her poem before its final version as we know it today.  

Antlers Hotel, Courtesy of Regional History & Genealogy, Pikes Peak Library District, 102-354

“It is not stuck in time, and can be meaningful to us today,” said Mayberry. 

Her words were set to the hymn, Materna, which was composed Samuel Ward.

Here is a 1923 recording of “America the Beautiful.”  Public Domain.

Click here to follow the original article.

Bradley Davis

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — On a Friday in June above Fremont County, the bluebird skies stretch for as far as the eye can see. Except for one, small splash of color.

“Oh, I see him!” Barbara King said while looking up at a parachuting figure.

At this distance, it’s impossible to see who.

“That’s Harry!” Baraba said.

Well, she knows who she’s looking for.

“It’s his first time being 90 years old,” King said.

It’s her husband’s birthday. Harry King has waited 90 years for this 40 seconds of free fall, but he’s not the one in the group checking an item off his bucket.

“I told Pastor John, and I said, ‘You won’t believe the adrenaline rush on this,'” King said. “He said, ‘I’d like to do that.’ That was his mistake.”

His pastor is also one of his best friends, and Pastor John was more than a little nervous to join Harry in the air for the first time.

“That’s what happens when you pastor a church full of heroes,” Pastor John said.

“I jumped as many times as I could when I was in the Army,” Harry said.

Jumping in Fremont County is easy when you’ve already jumped behind enemy lines.

“I did 107 jumps in the Army, and two of them were combat jumps. I didn’t count on them, but that happened when I was in Vietnam, so,” Harry said.

On his 90th birthday, Harry finds himself surrounded. But only by friends.

“I can’t believe so many showed up,” Harry said.

That’s how the small blip in an endless sky can become the center of the world. The center of Barbara’s world.

“You did it, sweetie!”

The two embrace for a long moment after Harry’s smooth landing.

“Oh, I love you,” Harry said.

I love you, too.”

The skies might carry his spirit, but the ground holds his heart.

“I love you, darling,” Harry said again.

It’s another safe landing for Harry. He’s just missing one thing.

“Well, thank you, Dee. I feel naked without my cap!” Harry said as his friend returned his Vietnam Veteran hat to him.

It’s another small gesture that made Harry’s smile brighter than any bluebird sky.

“I’m glad I did it, babe,” Barbara said to Harry.

“I’m glad I did it too.”

Harry is not done yet. He said he hopes to plan another skydiving trip for his 95th birthday.

Click here to follow the original article.

Bradley Davis

RYE COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – As the Aspen Acres fire approaches the 10th largest in Colorado State history, KRDO13’s Bradley Davis breaks down how it matches up with the largest and most destructive fires in Colorado’s tumultuous past.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Aspen Acres fire has burned 50,186 acres. That puts it as the 11th largest Colorado wildfire in state history, five days in with 0% containment.

→ Follow more coverage and recent updates on the Aspen Acres fire

Governor Jared Polis said Thursday he believes over 150 structures have been lost, about a third of which are homes. Nearly 500 homes were lost in the 2013 Black Forest fire, and over 1000 homes fell in the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County.

In his visualization, Davis uses fire maps to give us a sense of scale and contextualizes how the fire compares to a wide array of past tragedies

Click here to follow the original article.

Scott Harrison

PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — A Red Cross supervisor said that “fewer than ten” new evacuees have arrived since the overnight announcement of a new evacuation zone on the fifth day of the “Aspen Acres” fire in Custer County.

LATEST FIRE STATS & EVAC ORDERS: https://krdo.com/news/2026/07/06/aspen-acres-wildfire-updates-evacuations/

“And we expect that more are coming,” the supervisor said just before 5 a.m. on Friday.

The new evacuees come from the east side of the fire zone, between Interstate 25 and the Colorado City area, which had been on pre-evacuation status.

The Pueblo County shelter is set up at the county’s recreation center, just south of the Pueblo city limits.

Earlier this week, the shelter’s director said that roughly half of the 40 beds assembled were in use, but he also said that the shelter has enough beds, food and other resources to handle more evacuees. The supervisor on Friday morning confirmed that is still the case.

The Red Cross also provides an animal shelter where evacuees can keep their pets.

At least one woman — possibly among the new evacuees — was sleeping in her car on Friday morning.

Some evacuees are staying elsewhere but come to the shelter for the three daily meals offered there.

KRDO13 spoke with one of the new evacuees, Boyd Townsend, who said that he was staying at a hotel while his house was being repaired after a kitchen fire earlier this year.

“I tried to put that fire out, and now it looks like the home may burn down anyway,” he said. “At the Days Inn, we knocked on doors to make sure everyone got out. It was full, and many of the people were fire evacuees. The manager there was really nice. Some of the people didn’t have to pay anything, because they just didn’t have it.”

Raechel Thompson evacuated from Beulah to the shelter several days ago with her son and brother.

“It made us feel special,” she said. “It made us feel that Pueblo cares about Beulah, Rye, Wetmore, and so many other places. It’s a good feeling. It makes me really love Pueblo. I didn’t love it as much before.”

One evacuee said that the flames came to within 75 feet of her home; another evacuee said that she lost her home, had to give up her pet, and is now looking for a new house in Pueblo.

Evacuees who thought the worst of the fire was over, will go into the holiday weekend fearing how much worse things can get.

Authorities have set up a checkpoint at the intersection of Highway 165 and Crow Cutoff.

Near the I-25 interchange, a liquor store had closed, leaving a note on the door for customers; a convenience store next door, however, remained open.

Click here to follow the original article.