Large Wildfire On Fisher's Peak in Southern Colorado-Trinidad Threatened.

Picture of Last Years Fire Near Fisher's Peak

I watch yet another Colorado wild fire blow up on the horizon, this on on the northern flank of Fisher's Peak above the towns of Trinidad and Starkville some 7 miles southeast of my present location in the foothills west of I-25. At about 11:20 a.m. MDT., I noticed the merest puff of smoke on the mountain which has subsequently grown into an inferno of considerable magnitude already darkening the pale blue sky above the mountain and evidently expanding rapidly, even exponentially, to the south east. The large column of smoke is evidently tracking south southeast. Dense smoke through which one can occasionally see the reddish flames of the fire itself is already engulfing the mountain peak and apparently racing down the mountainside towards I-25 and the two towns along its corridor. Just FYI, I personally witnessed absolutely no lightning out of a cloudless sky as reported by a Colorado Springs TV station. There is a possibility that this fire is a flare up of a fire which was ignited on Saturday near the Crazy French Ranch and which was thought to be under control at that time.

As of this afternoon the Fisher's Peak fire seems to have abated somewhat and though the massive and dense smoke still pours across the blue profile of the peak, it has ceased rising into the once clear blue sky now dappled with many rainless clouds in a ugly looking swath of reddish brown cloud of the fire's own making.