Some residents in Custer County were planning for a return to their homes Monday as evacuation orders related to the Aspen Acres fire had been eased in the morning, but Mother Nature had other ideas.

Temperatures in the 80s and humidity below 30% helped the fire on the west side of the boundary, including in controlled burn areas, move more than expected Monday, said Rich Cowger, incident commander with the Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team, during a community meeting later in the evening in Colorado City.

How much fire movement? Cowger figured Monday’s burn was equal to what crews would have accomplished with an intended, controlled burn in about a week and a half.

The result could be good news if improved firefighting weather — along with forecast rain — arrives in the next week.

But for now, residents in an area known as Custer Zone C4 were back under mandatory evacuation as of Monday afternoon. The repopulation of Custer Zone C10, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was also canceled, officials said.

“This is necessary due to increased fire movement,” the Custer County Sheriff’s Office posted on social media.

Containment remained at 61% while the total number of acres burned ticked up slightly to 100,756 on Monday. A total of 1,309 personnel remain assigned to the fire.

Officials with the Northern Rockies Complex team offered an optimistic outlook because of the weather forecast while continuing to ask for residents’ patience.

“We’re going to start to get that monsoon moisture coming in,” said Juan Hernandez, a meteorologist with the Northern Rockies Complex team. He expects showers to arrive in the next five to 10 days along with some lower temperatures.

Among the challenges that remain is the large amount of fuel thanks to mixed conifer trees including dead standing trees.

Elsewhere, the town of Rye remained under evacuation Monday while areas south of Colorado 96 and north of Colorado 78 remained on pre-evacuation status.

The mandatory evacuation order for the North Creek area (Zone FS-2) and the 2600 block of Siloam Road (Zone FS-1) was lifted, according to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office.

New Recovery Assistance Center

The Disaster Assistance Center, which was located at the Pueblo Academy of Arts, transitioned into a Recovery Assistance Center, located at Beulah Heights Elementary School, on Monday.

The center is at Beulah Heights Elementary, 2670 Delphinium St. in Beulah. It will be open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Resources are available to support evacuees and residents as they transition to recovery. Lunch is served daily and food distribution is available.