From where I live in Fort Collins, the High Park fire is just over the hill, about 14 miles away. As of Monday noon, the fire which started on Saturday is more than 36,000 acres!! It has just entered a state park and there's no effort at containment right now, as it's too dangerous to get close to...any wind can move it at great speed.
This is burning in a heavily forested area of the foothills, where terrain is steep. I pulled this from a story in the paper linked below: "Blazes are spreading at 20 to 40 feet per minute with average heights of 15 to 20 feet with bursts up to 300 feet high."
The local paper has coverage:
http://www.coloradoan.com/ Some photos taken yesterday afternoon from my house - at this time the blaze was less than half its size now, less than 24 hours later.
The sun through the smoke:
The smoke...
The terrain is such that I don't think this fire can come over the hill and get into town, but we already have more than 2000 people evacuated from homes in the area, and the evacuation area is increasing. I just made an online donation to the Northern Colorado Red Cross, as they need the help.