Explosive new Colorado wildfire prompts 3,000 evacuations in Boulder County


A new wildfire spread rapidly in Boulder County, Colorado, over the weekend, prompting the evacuations of at least 3,000 people. The CalWood Fire began burning Saturday about 50 miles southeast of the Cameron Peak Fire, the largest in state history. "It just exploded," Mike Wagner, division chief with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, said of the CalWood fire. "We do believe multiple homes were probably lost. It's still too dynamic to get in and begin to assess."
The Cameron Peak Fire started in mid-August, and has burned more than 317 square miles. The cause of the new fire was not immediately determined, although investigators said there had been no lightning strikes or other weather events that could have started the CalWood Fire. The area has had high winds and "critically dry" conditions for weeks, fire officials said.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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