About 225 homes in the Big Elk Meadows subdivision near Lyons
are evacuated, and people in up to 500 more houses have been told
to be ready to leave. The Larimer County sheriff's office has
updated an existing evacuation plan for Estes Park. Sheriff's
spokeswoman Eloise Campanella says the plan divides the town into
four zones. Each would be evacuated in turn if fire is spotted.
The fire is estimated at about four-thousand acres -- down from
the 45-hundred acres estimated yesterday due to more accurate
mapping. It's five percent contained.
Fire information officer Leslie McFadden says forecasters are
predicting a 60 to 70 percent chance of a soaking rain in the area
over the next few days.
Meanwhile, significant rain fell yesterday and overnight on
several other fires including a 41-hundred-acre complex of three
fires in the Sarvice Creek and Flattops wilderness areas and a
14-hundred-acre blaze north of Steamboat Springs.