Cool temperatures and occasional rain showers slowed the growth of the Haystack Fire south of Boulder on Sunday and early this week after the fire exploded to more than 10,000 acres on Saturday, but dangerous fire conditions forecast for later this week and this weekend could accelerate the fire’s growth.
The Haystack Fire was estimated to be 10,300 acres on Tuesday morning with only 8% containment, after low humidity, warm temperatures and high winds—particularly on Saturday, when gusts hit around 60 mph—caused the fire to expand by orders of magnitude and reach the North Fork of the Little Boulder River to the north and the upper reaches of West Creek and Beaver Creek to the east, little more than a mile west of Whitetail Road.
“We’ve got a couple days of reprieve right now, but later in the week it’s looking like more fire weather, so we’re still in the thick of it now,” Cory Kirsch, the co-incident commander and chief of Boulder-Bull Mountain Rural Volunteer Fire Department, said at a community information meeting on Sunday afternoon. Kirsch is also a Jefferson County commissioner.
