The 416 fire north of Durango grew to more than 7,000 acres Thursday, but part of that growth was from deliberate burnout operations on the fire’s south and north ends. No structures had been lost as of Friday morning, but hundreds of homes had been evacuated and hundreds more were on pre-evacuation notice. A top-level Rocky Mountain Type I Incident Management Team is set to take over command of firefighting operations Saturday from the Type II team.
Winds are predicted to die down over the weekend. However, the weather will remain hot and dry, and much of eastern Utah and western Colorado is under a red-flag warning Saturday and Sunday.