Firefighters get first small containment of destructive Alexander Mountain Fire in Northern Colorado

The largest of Colorado's current wildfires continues to spread, but at the same time there is some good news in the battle: the Alexander Mountain Fire is now 5% contained.

The fire started on Monday morning in Larimer County west of Loveland and since then it has grown to 9,375 acres and destroyed about 30 structures. The majority of the burn area is on U.S. Forest Service land, but the property loss has been on private land along Palisade Mountain Drive and Snow Top Drive.  

"I know 5% containment may not sound like a lot but ot doesn't mean that we're not having a lot of successes," Incident Commander Carl Schwope said at a 4 p.m. Friday news conference. "(We're) expecting to show some more containment over that in the next few days."

Schwope says the efforts have still been met by several challenges.

"It's still extremely hot, there's still some very rough topography, the fire is still in and amongst the homes and the threat of fire crossing (Highway) 34 is still very realistic," he said. The possibility of thunderstorms could also complicate efforts as lighting could spark new fires and wind gusts could spread them.

The fire is most likely human-caused, according to Gov. Jared Polis, and if you have tips that might help in the investigation into that cause you can call the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Tip Line at (303) 275-5266. Videos or photos can also be submitted through a special section of the U.S. Forest Service website.

Among the structures that were destroyed is the studio of artist Linda Renaud. She says she was able to confirm that through her neighbors in the area who avoided mandatory evacuations. She is now lamenting the loss of valuable artwork.

"Some of the paintings are gone. They're just gone," Renaud said.

Renaud says she is glad she evacuated this time for her own safety and that her home is still standing.

Larimer County officials said the county sometimes struggles to connect with people who have homes or buildings in fire zones. Anyone who thinks they are one of these people is asked to call the county's Damage Assessment Center at 970-980-2800.

"Getting the notification that your home or property has been damaged is never easy," Sheriff John Feyen said in a prepared statement. "We will grieve alongside our neighbors through this difficult process, and our team will be here for you in the difficult days and months ahead. The hundreds of people assigned to this fire will continue working around the clock to keep our community safe."

There are 389 personnel working on the fire. About 260 of those are firefighters and many are stationed near homes.

"Their work is not very glamorous, frankly, but it's very valuable," Jayson Coil, operations section chief in charge of strategic operations for Southwest Area Incident Management Team 1. "Basically what they're doing is with hand tools, with regular garden tools or with hoses and sometimes with bladder bags, with backpacks with water on their back, they're going down around all these structures looking for places that the fuels are manageable enough ... are thin enough, basically, that with their small numbers that they can make an effective impact on the fire."

"A lot of the southern aspects of this fire, like off that ridge, is the same place that's baking in the sun and all that rock, so they're going at all that rock and they're picking the fuel out between it with their tools to make sure that the fire doesn't find those stringers of fuels and work down in there. At the same time, the engines are in there working around the homes to prevent that fire from moving and impacting the homes -- where it's safe to do so."

On the southern end of the fire, managers said in a Thursday afternoon news conference that they are working hard to protect houses and above-ground fiber-optic cable that runs next to Highway 34.

"There's still some areas where the fire could roll down and impact Highway 34 and impact that fiber-optic line. So we'll continue that pole patrol 24 hours a day until we ensure that there's no longer any threat to that," said Coil. "Because that fiber-optic line is the primary 911 line into Estes Park, and there's limited redundancy and it also would negatively impact all of their landlines if that was to become damaged."

On the north side of the fire, there's an ongoing effort to block the wildfire from moving near homes but allowing it to move to meet the Cameron Peak Fire burn scar, where Coil anticipates it would slow down significantly.

"We believe it will be very effective," said Coil.  

Approximately 5,200 people have been mandatorily evacuated (including the community of Glen Haven) and there are about 600 people in the voluntary evacuation zones.

Evacuation orders are set to be lifted in the areas around County Road 27 and around Carter Lake that were voluntary. We're lifting those evacuation restrictions as or as well. Several areas that were under mandatory evacuation will also be moved to voluntary evacuation status. The area near the mouth of Big Thompson Canyon will remain under mandatory evacuation.