Aided by rain, crews make progress on fires

Favorable weather conditions including recent rain showers have aided firefighters in gaining the upper hand over local wildfires that ignited in recent weeks, including the Gatlin Gulch Fire southwest of Boulder, which was 70% contained as of Monday.

Though still burning, the Gatlin Gulch Fire is mostly contained and has not grown significantly in more than a week. More accurate mapping showed the fire at 52 acres, down from last week’s estimates of about 60 acres. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Sunday that “heavy equipment has been demobilized from the fire, as have other resources that have fulfilled their assignments. Command estimates that the fire will be turned back to the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest on Wednesday.”

A page for the fire on InciWeb, a national interagency database of wildfires, indicated on Monday that 86 personnel were working the fire, down from more than 100 the week before. Incident command expected to have the fire, which is about 5 miles southwest of Boulder, fully contained by Aug. 15, according to the site.