Colorado wildfires: Lightning-sparked fires in southwestern Colorado forest burn thousands of acres, force evacuations

Lauren Penington, The Denver Post on Jun 28, 2026

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Three wildfires sparked Saturday in a southwestern Colorado forest, with two of the blazes combining to consume thousands of acres and force evacuations, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

The Ferris, Far Draw and Doe Canyon fires were first reported Saturday afternoon in the San Juan National Forest, according to the U.S. Forest Service. As of Sunday afternoon, the Ferris fire had merged with the Far Draw fire, together burning nearly 9,600 acres, federal officials said. The Doe Canyon fire had consumed roughly 1,046 acres at that time.

At that time, mandatory evacuations had been issued for residents north and east of the still-growing wildfires, according to the Dolores County Office of Emergency Management. The evacuation area was bordered to the north by Disappointment Road, to the south by the Glade Ranch community, to the west by the fire and to the east by Road 30, according to the office.

“Moving forward into today, the weather forecast is largely the same as it was yesterday,” San Juan Team Eight Incident Commander Brad Pietruszka said in an operational briefing. “Those strong southwest winds are going to continue; you’re still going to see smoke columns and activity up on the hill.”

Dry, hot and windy conditions exacerbated the fires’ growth and are expected to continue through the next several days, Pietruszka said.

“The Ferris fire growing about 5,000 acres in five hours (on Saturday) is pretty unprecedented around here,” he said. “Extremely dry conditions, extremely high wind speeds and extreme fire behavior are definitely limiting our ability to simply get on the edge of this thing.”

Lighting is believed to have started all three fires in the forest’s Glade area near Narraguinnep Canyon, north of Dolores, according to fire officials.

“Extreme fire behavior” prevented firefighters from engaging the fire directly on Saturday, but airtankers dropped roughly a dozen loads of retardant on the fire’s southeast flank, fire officials stated in a Sunday update.

Red flag conditions, including the strong winds and dry fuels that drove the fires northeast on Saturday, could reduce the effectiveness of aircraft and potentially ground them, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The area will be under a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning until 10 p.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service’s Grand Junction office.

Homes near the head of the fire and structures within the natural forest are threatened by the spreading flames, fire officials said. It’s unknown how many buildings are threatened, but no structures had been lost as of Sunday.

The U.S. Forest Service closed the Bradfield Bridge Campground, Forest Service Road 504 to the base of McPhee Dam, Forest Service Road 521 and Forest Service Road 504 “out of an abundance of caution,” according to a post on Facebook.

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