FLORISSANT • Smoke thick enough to irritate lungs, permeate clothing and reduce visibility hung in the air Friday morning, as Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell told media and a few residents at a news briefing that the threat from a nearby fire that began Thursday afternoon is not over.

“Fire danger changes every time the wind changes,” he said to the small group that gathered at Evergreen Station, a store at the back-road juncture to Cripple Creek. “We do have a danger right now.”

Persistent low humidity, above-normal high temperatures and wind gusts forecast up to 30 mph Friday make for unpredictable circumstances, officials said.

Forty-two homes with 120 people were evacuated Thursday evening, after the High Park fire sparked at 4:30 p.m. and began spreading rapidly, officials said.

James McElveen lives about a mile from where the fire started. He and his wife packed their car, waved to their longtime home and slept in their car Thursday night, after being ordered to leave the Lakemoor subdivision, which is under mandatory evacuation.

“The plan is to get back home,” said McElveen, who said he worked 23 years in firefighting and was too distraught to talk much. “With the weather conditions this year, everything’s so dry.”

Officials said they have not yet determined a cause of the fire. No containment had been achieved by Friday morning, said incident commander Matt Norden.

The fire, located west of Cripple Creek, increased overnight from 386 acres as of 7 p.m. Thursday to more than 400 acres Friday morning and was still growing, Mikesell said.

Containment Friday will depend on the way the winds shift and how fast firefighters can get ahead of Mother Nature, Mikesell said.

Up to 150 firefighters, some volunteers, are on scene, he said, along with representatives from agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, which owns some of the land that’s affected.

Bulldozers dug control boundaries, a helicopter made water drops and crews used “firing out” tactics — setting fire to unburned fuels between the control lines and the main fire — to get a handle on the situation Thursday, Norden said.

Firefighters will work Friday on the eastern and southern edges of the fire, Norden said, adding that much of the land is rugged terrain.

“We’re putting everything we possibly can out there,” Mikesell, the sheriff, said.

But residents are worried. Some, like Linda Dura, remember too well the campfire-ignited High Chateau fire in June 2018, which burned 1,423 acres just up the road and destroyed 11 homes.

It was scary then, and it’s scary now, she said.

“With the dryness, we’re all nervous up here because you just don’t know,” Dura said, adding that she’s preparing to evacuate her animals in case her family needs to hurriedly leave their property.

Cripple Creek Ranch Estates and Lost Burro Campground remain on pre-evacuation notice.

An emergency shelter has been set up at the Cripple Creek High School, and animals are being cared for at the Teller County Fairgrounds in Cripple Creek, Mikesell said.

Workers are prepared if the fire takes a turn for the worse, he said.

Ten beds at the Pikes Peak Regional Hospital are ready for anyone injured or in need of medical attention, the sheriff said, and a coordinated response team also is doing its job.

Public donations of unopened bottle water or unopened food can be dropped off at the sheriff’s office in Divide, he said.

June 8 marks the 20th anniversary of start of the human-caused Hayman Fire, which for 18 years was the largest wildfire in Colorado history, burning 138,114 acres, 600 structures and spanned four counties, including Teller County.