Sudden cold temperatures and precipitation have allowed Cameron Peak fire officials to lift evacuations for the over 100,000-acre wildfire after days of explosive growth.

The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday that evacuation orders have been lifted or downgraded for nearly a dozen notification areas, including parts of Colorado Highway 14, County Road 52E and County Road 44H. Full lists and maps of the changes can be found at nocoalert.org.

After days of heat, high winds and low precipitation, Operations Planning Officer Jake Livingston said the firefighting teams are using Tuesday to regroup.

“We’re assessing what damages the fire may have done. We’re looking at where the fire is,” Livingston said in Tuesday’s operational update posted to the Cameron Peak Fire Facebook page.

The Cameron Peak Fire has been burning since Aug. 13 and remains at only 4% containment. It reached 102,596 acres Tuesday morning, making it the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado history.

Record-breaking heat over the weekend caused the fire to explode in size. It had burned 26,000 acres before Saturday, reaching 60,000 acres by Sunday night and over 100,000 by Tuesday.

Livingston said some areas of the fire have already received multiple inches of snow, which could assist in containment.

“The High Park fire, that area, it burnt several years back but there’s a lot of grasses and smaller fuel types there that are more receptive to humidity and rain and snow,” Livingston said. “We’re hoping that that’ll help us out a lot with halting that part of the fire.”

However, Livingston said the weather may not be as helpful in all areas.

“Even with the predicted 8-16 inches of snow, we do expect there to be heat still sheltered up there underneath the heavier fuel loaded areas, such as the fallen over beetle kill,” Livingston said. “That’ll be hard to pick up over the next five to seven days.”

Livingston said he expects that heat will become visible in the form of smoking areas when the snow melts. As the areas dry, those high-elevation wilderness areas may become active.

The weather is expected to remain cold with rain and snow over the fire area for the next several days, said Cameron Peak fire officials. The area is expected to begin to warm by Friday.