While growth of the Aspen Acres fire that’s burning southwest of Pueblo has slowed in recent days, firefighters still face significant challenges in several areas found along the perimeter of the blaze. On top of that, the fire is now resulting in another deadly threat – the life-threatening potential of flash flooding, with a large portion of the surrounding area, including the city of Pueblo, under a flash flood watch until 8 p.m. amid slow-moving thunderstorms that are expected throughout Wednesday.

Per the official Wednesday morning update, the Aspen Acres fire has reached 96,031 acres – about 150 square miles and about the same size as the City and County of Denver, which is roughly 155 square miles. To help put that size into perspective, the city of Boulder is about 26 square miles, the city of Fort Collins is about 58.5 square miles, and the city of Colorado Springs is about 195 square miles. At time of reporting, the Aspen Acres fire is the seventh-largest in state history, ahead of the 2012 High Park fire at 87,284 acres and behind the 2018 Spring Creek fire at 108,045 acres.

Growth that came yesterday was on the northern edge of the fire, pushed by winds from thunderstorms that moved through. Those same thunderstorms did, however, bring rain – about 1/100th of an inch – not much, but enough to damper the blaze a little bit. A nighttime thunderstorm cell also prevented what was expected to be a more notable firefight in the Greenwood and Wetmore areas.

A key concern today will be the flash flood risk related to incoming storms, with the charred ground of the burn scar serving as a sort of crust that makes it more difficult for water to penetrate the soil, thus resulting in run-off. Additionally, with forest cover lost, that cover won’t be intercepting any of the expected rain. Those in the area should be on the lookout for the flash flood watch to become a flash flood warning, which fire officials say could happen if about a quarter-inch of rain falls.

In addition to the flash flood risk, the storms will have potential to “push gusty outflow winds onto the fire, creating erratic fire activity.”

Per the Wednesday morning update, Bishop Castle remains outside of the burn area and intact, with firefighters working on structural protection for that popular attraction.

Find additional information about the Aspen Acres Fire here. A website and application called Watch Duty has also been a great resource for tracking the blaze and alerts. That’s a good one for all Coloradans to have downloaded to their phones with county-specific notifications turned on.

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