Awatchfire

Lake County, Colorado

Willow Fire

Burning 7.1 miles west of Leadville North and 7.9 miles west of Leadville, since Sunday 28 June.

Map of Colorado. The Willow Fire burns 91 miles from Denver, and 91 miles from the state capital, Denver.
The fire sits 91 miles from Denver.

7,359

acres burned so far — about 11 square miles

108

days burning so far

92%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 10:09am today

The Willow Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 812 hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 812 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Willow Fire. Amber flames mark every place that gave off heat in the last day; the shading is the shape of the ground.
Heat in the last day Higher ground pale, valleys dark

812hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 2:20pm on Friday, local time.

0readings

of heat in the last day. There is not yet an earlier stretch of record to compare that against.

7.2miles

is how close the heat has come to Leadville North at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been None miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Leadville is 7.9 miles, None in the last day.

1.5miles

is the furthest any heat has been seen from the point on the official record — the width of the ground involved so far.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground once so far. The thickest of it was thin between 6:00am and 9:00am local time. The last of those windows closed 121 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

Where the heat is

No cluster large enough to call a separate front. The heat is in one piece.

Conditions measured 3.3 miles from the fire: 32°F, air at 84% humidity, a 5 mph wind out of the north.

How it got here

Three days of record on a day-110 fire

The record here begins at 2:38pm on 9 Sep and runs to 2:19pm on 11 Sep — 48 hours, 6 readings of heat. The fire is on day 110, so the first 107 days are missing: nothing showed up from above until the fire was large enough and the sky over it clear enough for it to be seen. There is no long arc to draw yet. What follows is what has actually happened.

Animated map of the Willow Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 19 frames at 3 hours a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Hour by hour local time

Wed 2:00pmFri 2:00pm

Each bar is one hour of local time, sized by how much energy the fire gave off in it. This fire is too young for a day-against-day comparison to say anything, so the hours are shown instead.

Day by day 3 days of record

  1. Map for Wed 9 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Wed9 Sep

    First readings

    • 3 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Heat from 2:38pm to 2:38pm
    • Spread 1.5 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  2. Map for Thu 10 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu10 Sep

    Holding

    • 2 heat readings
    • Energy 29% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:19pm to 2:40pm
    • Spread 1.3 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  3. Map for Fri 11 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Fri11 Seplatest

    Today so far

    • 1 heat readings
    • Energy 50% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:19pm to 2:19pm
    • Spread 0.5 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon

How the record has moved

Each step is a change on the interagency incident record — acreage, containment or crews — with the date it was reported. No satellite reading is involved.

  1. Sunday 28 June

    First reported

  2. Sunday 23 August

    7,534 acres on record — 80% contained, 10 personnel assigned

    7,534 ac · 80% held · 10 crew

  3. Friday 11 September

    Revised to 7,390 acres — 7 personnel

    7,390 ac · 80% held · 7 crew

  4. Saturday 12 September

    Revised to 7,389 acres

    7,389 ac · 80% held · 7 crew

  5. Monday 28 September

    Revised to 7,359 acres — 4 personnel

    7,359 ac · 80% held · 4 crew

  6. Tuesday 13 October

    Containment 92% — 3 personnel

    7,359 ac · 92% held · 3 crew

92% of the perimeter is being reported as held. 3 people are assigned to it. It has grown from 0 acres when it was first written down to 7,359 now. Nothing has looked at it for 812 hours, and the record still lists it as active.