Highland Lakes Fire Update: Firefighters Achieve 60% Containment | Fire

DIVIDE – A horrific man-made fire that broke out Monday afternoon in a home in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Divide and quickly spread to the point where firefighters suppressed the flames from the back of many homes by 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, reaching one Containment reached 60% as 150 firefighters worked around the clock to combat what had the potential to turn into a scary beast.

“We are taking this fire very seriously and have had some great successes,” Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said at the last of three media briefings Tuesday.

Morning aerial drops, before wind gusts of more than 50 mph (80 km/h) developed later in the day, helped dampen the fire's progress, he said, as workers from numerous agencies used hand tools, bulldozers and graders to create a line of fire around what had emerged Area that burned nearly 100 acres overnight to 166 acres on Tuesday in a heavily wooded and populated area near the historic Golden Bell Camp & Conference Center.

“You’re saving your homes,” Mikesell said during a news conference Monday night.

Officials lifted pre-evacuation orders for 650 homes in the Spring Valley, Aspen Moors and Central Divide areas Tuesday evening and left mandatory evacuations for nearly 700 homes in effect through Wednesday morning. Mikesell said officials hope to begin phasing out residents in the Aspen Valley, Broken Wheel and other subdivisions by 10 a.m. Wednesday so they can return to their homes, depending on how the fire behaves Tuesday evening .

“There are still things happening that worry us,” he said. “There is a big risk here. It is a dangerous fire and we are treating it as such.”

Teller County officials announced at 1 p.m. Tuesday that containment of the Highland Lakes Fire had reached 15% containment, after reaching 5% containment overnight. Mikesell attributed Tuesday's area expansion primarily to firefighting efforts to cut a fire line.

The sheriff called the large and rapid response “aggressive” because “the wind is so strong and there is a possibility it could increase exponentially.”

Many of the firefighters live in the area and were evacuated, Mikesell said, so they are wholeheartedly committed to their work.

The evacuated homes were worth $300 million and more than 2,000 people were displaced, he said.

A home was destroyed, believed to be where the fire started, but because the case is being investigated as a crime scene and criminal charges may be pending, Mikesell said the address will not be released. It is located in the Highland Lakes subdivision and the Teller County Sheriff's Office is working with the 4th Judicial District Office to investigate the scene, along with state fire marshals.

“We are still in the investigative phase of how it burned, why it burned and what happened,” the sheriff said. “We cannot say what caused the fire or how it started.”

However, officials confirmed the fire was a structure fire and not a wildfire.

Speculation on social media points to a 76-year-old woman whose Highland Lakes home has been foreclosed on. Some neighbors said she told them she was “cleaning up” and burning cardboard on the property where she had apparently been squatting. In a photo posted on social media showing it engulfed in flames, the house appears to be the one that burned down.

Public records show that the American National Property and Casualty Company filed a restraining order against the woman last month after she allegedly threatened to burn down her office, shoot people and kill an employee and his family.

She traveled to both Texas and Missouri to confront the employees, the documents say. The dispute allegedly involved an insurance claim from December 2023, although authorities apparently failed to serve the injunction because they could not locate her.

Mikesell said websites and Facebook pages for the Teller County Sheriff's Office and District Office are the official sources.

“Please don’t listen to fake news on YouTube,” he said. “There are a lot of rumors going around; A lot of it we would call nonsense.”

The fire started less than a mile from Belinda Binette's home. She was driving home Monday when she learned her neighborhood was being evacuated. She and her roommate grabbed their two cats, important papers and treasures like musical flutes and jewelry, started their RV and vehicles and headed to the Woodland Park Community Church evacuation center.

About 10 people spent the night indoors and more spent the night outside in their vehicles with their pets, said an American Red Cross official working with the task force.

Animals large and small will be temporarily housed at the Teller County Regional Animal Shelter in Divide or the Teller County Fairgrounds in Cripple Creek.

“It was pretty scary,” Binette said Tuesday. “The smoke was so thick that you could see the firefighters at work. It was real. We became physically ill from the stress.”

No other buildings were damaged, Mikesell said, and no other people were injured. Some were treated for smoke inhalation Monday, he said, who are usually firefighters. However, as the smoke remained low on the ground, the health of some residents was also affected.

“In residential areas, homes are fairly close together, and if the fuel ignites, it can spread quickly,” the sheriff said, adding that the area’s wildland task force was immediately called in.

Tuesday's answer, weather

“It worries me because of the environment; “This fire is aggressive, it is difficult to fight because of the cold,” Mikesell said Monday evening.

Additionally, a red flag warning is in effect, meaning fire conditions are extreme. Additionally, Teller County implemented a Level 3 burn ban on Monday, banning all outdoor burning, including smoking cigarettes.

There were sustained winds of 20 miles per hour on Monday; The forecast for Tuesday calls for winds of up to 50 mph to accompany the dry conditions, Mikesell said.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he said. “We will hit this extremely hard. Let’s pray there is moisture behind it.”

Drier seasons have resulted in more severe fires and events occurring in areas that have not historically been prime locations, such as neighborhoods.

However, snow is forecast for Teller County over the next few days, which could help further extinguish the Highland Lakes fire.

Evacuations

Traffic on roads outside Divide was “bumper to bumper” Monday evening as evacuees rushed to leave the rural area, where there is often only one road in and one road out.

Between 60 and 100 evacuees were escorted back to their homes on Tuesday to pick up necessary items they left behind when they left their homes on Monday, such as medicine, Mikesell said.

According to the sheriff's office, a swathe has been designated to allow licensed hunters to hunt on the land. And the county's strict fire ban doesn't apply to hunters.

Hunting typically doesn't cause fires, he said at Tuesday's 1 p.m. briefing. “We didn’t want hunters who hunt legally to be cut off from something they paid for,” he said, “so we allow hunting in the backcountry of Teller County.”

The Gavitt family's hunting trip from Wisconsin took a turn for the worse Monday when they returned from a dry hunt for elk in the Pike National Forest in Divide to find they couldn't return to their vacation home to retrieve anything.

So they spent the night in a motel in Woodland Park in their hunting clothes and that was about it. Some members of the 11-member group appeared at a briefing Tuesday to find out what was going on and whether they can get their RV, vehicles, identification and other essential materials to ensure they can return home.

“In the morning it was paradise, in the evening it was hell,” said the matriarch of the Gavitt family, who did not want to give her first name.

What a story for vacationers!

“What a mess,” replied the Gavitt patriarch, who also didn’t want his first name used. “We’ve never been evacuated.”

Road closures

Roads near the area are closed to the public: all of County Road 511 is inaccessible and County Road 51 from County Road 5 to County Road 512 is closed.

Teller County commissioners declared the fire an emergency disaster on Monday, allowing help from more agencies and more state resources to flow.

“This community is very resilient – ​​we have experienced more fires in the last eight years that I have been sheriff than most counties ever experience,” Mikesell said.