A small wildfire burning in the mountains just outside downtown Boulder has reached 20 percent containment, reports the Daily Camera.
The fire forced people from their homes early Sunday and ignited dead trees that exploded into black plumes of smoke, authorities and residents said.
Wind was pushing the flames in the wooded area a couple of miles west of Pearl Street, the shopping and dining heart of the university city's downtown. The fire has reached 120 acres, but strong gusts and warm and dry weather threatened to fan the flames.
Authorities made more than 1,000 calls to residents ordering them to evacuate and warned an additional 2,200 to get ready to leave if conditions worsened, said Gabi Boerkircher of the Boulder Office of Emergency Management.
It wasn't clear exactly how many houses or residents were evacuated because the calls could have gone to multiple people living in the same home and likely didn't include children.
There were no reports of injuries or damage to homes, emergency officials said. Several aircraft were making drops to battle the flames, and a community center has opened as an evacuation shelter.
Officials were not sure how the fire started.
Seth Frankel, who has been warned that he and his family may need to evacuate, said he had packed up "generations of things" that can't be replaced and was ready to go if the air quality got worse.
He said smoke is pouring toward neighborhoods and many dead trees are combusting and sending black smoke into the air less than a half-mile from his home. But he and his wife, a Boulder native, and three daughters have dealt with fires and floods before.
"It's always alarming and always on your mind, but it's not an uncommon sensation around here," said Frankel, who has lived in Boulder for 20 years.
He got word about the fire early Sunday from a neighbor who received a warning call and has been outside with neighbors watching the flames and smoke. But he let his daughters, 9, 11 and 13, get some more sleep.
"It's still alarming, but there's no panic," Frankel said.
