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Fire Evacuees Allowed To Return

Overnight Snow Helped Firefighting Efforts

POSTED: 11:29 am MDT April 27, 2002
UPDATED: 5:23 pm MDT April 27, 2002

Weather helped firefighters with the Snaking Fire near Bailey overnight, and the evacuation order was lifted Saturday afternoon for remaining subdivisions..

Snow flurries fell on the area of the fire around 1 a.m. and colder overnight temperatures helped firefighters keep the fire contained. Crews were working to increase the containment from 50 percent to full containment by Sunday night.

Five subdivisions and neighborhoods were were still evacuated until Saturday afternoon: Lazy Ours, Bailey Estates, Crow Valley, Crow Gulch and Horseshoe Park. Everyone else who had be evacuated earlier had already been allowed to return.

The damage estimate from the fire so far is more than $1.1 million, with the total expected to top $2 million by the time it is fully out.

The Park County Sheriff's Office said that it would decide Monday whether to charge the three teens suspected of causing the fire. The Platte Canyon High School freshmen were allegedly smoking in a secluded area on the side of the hill behind their high school Tuesday, sheriff's officers said. They were still trying to determine if the fire was ignited accidentally, or on purpose.

One classmate was reported to have heard at least one of the fire suspects bragging that the fire helped them get out of school early, but the sheriff's office would not comment on that report.

Firefighting crews from all over the country were helping contain the fire and establish a perimeter around the 2,500-acre blaze.

No homes were lost to the fire, which completely surrounded some mountain homes in Bailey Estates, although several outbuildings were destroyed in the fire.

Only a few small whisps of smoke could be seen along the mountains north of Bailey Saturday afternoon.

The fire burned in mostly Ponderosa pine and fir around Grouse Mountain and Split Rock, between Shawnee and Crow Hill. The blaze was contained to Park County on Pike National Forest and on private land.

The wildfire increased dramatically Wedneday and forced residents to evacuate the small town of Bailey Wednesday, The town, without a stoplight, is about about 40 miles southwest of Denver, in the foothills. It has a population of about 4,400 people.

There was little evidence of the fire from Highway 285 as it runs through Bailey. Farther west, several burned forest areas could be seen next to the highway around Glen-Isle.


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