IMPORTANT: There is a community meeting tonight (Wednesday, Aug. 6) at 7 p.m. at Meeker High School. Fire managers and local authorities will present on current and future fire, weather, and evacuation status. Directly after the presentations there will be fire managers, local authorities, and public information officers available at maps to answer questions. The community meeting will be recorded and available on the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RioBlancoCountySheriffsOffice. Comments will be monitored to address any questions.
MEEKER | In the update from the Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team 3 this morning, the two fires have burned more than 30,000 acres in Rio Blanco County.
There are 236 total personnel working the fires, with seven aircraft, nine engines, seven hand crews and three heavy equipment pieces.
According to the press release, the Lee Fire spread to the east on Tuesday and made large runs to the south, with hot, dry, windy conditions. Structure protection was put in place.
The Elk Fire, east of Meeker, saw less activity on Tuesday, allowing firefighters to stop forward progress on the south end of the fire along County Road 8. On the north and east side of the fire, firefighters worked to provent the fire from crossing the Beaver Creek Drainage and continued structure protection.
Today, crew on the Lee Fire will be working on structure protection on the east side of the fire, along
with adding protection measures to prevent forward progress. Firefighters on the south side of the fire will work on gathering intel and focus on reducing forward progress of the fire. On the west side of the fire firefighters will finish operations on structure protection and start to further secure the fire line created.
On the Elk Fire, firefighters will continue point protection of structures with assessing and securing structures. Crews will continue to secure line around the south end of the fire.
Evacuations and Closures: Go to the Rio Branco County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page –
https://www.facebook.com/RioBlancoCountySheriffsOffice – for accurate up-to-date information on all evacuations and road
closures. To sign up for emergency alerts go to: https://rioblancoalerts.genasys.com/portal/en
Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) area will be increased today to provide fire aviation resources a safe working environment. Pilots need to review the new TFR area.
Air Quality: Current air quality for your area can be found at fire.airnow.gov.
Elk and Lee Fire Information:
Phone: 970-341-8665 This is a new number and will not change in the future.
Email: [email protected]
Iniciweb Lee Fire: https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/cowrd-lee-fire
Inciweb Elk Fire: https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/cowrd-elk-rbx-fire
