Updated on July 15, 2024 at 6:50 a.m.
Fire officials announced Saturday that the Dinosaur fire was fully contained.
A helicopter and tanker planes swarmed the Dinosaur fire southwest of Boulder on Friday afternoon, helping ground teams extinguish a blaze burning on property owned by the National Center for Atmospheric Research — a federal research center sitting at the foot of the Boulder Flatirons.
At a news conference on early Friday around 1:30 p.m., Jennifer Ciplet, a spokesperson for the City of Boulder, asked the public to avoid the area around NCAR. The wildfire, however, is not an immediate public safety threat, and officials have cleared all hiking trails in the immediate area, Ciplet said.
Ciplet said one county helicopter is working to extinguish the fire alongside two small fixed-wing aircraft.
No residential evacuations had been issued at the time of the press conference, but officials encourage nearby Boulder residents to have a go-bag prepared if conditions change.
A spokesperson for the National Center for Atmospheric Research told CPR News the facility had been evacuated due to the blaze. A spokesperson for the nearby National Institute of Standards and Technology also says the facility has been shut down as a precautionary measure.
The first reports of the fire arrived at 11:22 a.m., said Mountain View Fire Rescue spokesperson Rick Tillery. The fire is burning near the Bear Creek Trail and the Mallory Creek Trail and has grown to cover three acres amid moderate winds.
The wildfire is burning amid a record-breaking heat wave across Colorado, which is expected to bake large parts of the state with temperatures near or above 100 degrees. A lack of rain and low humidity levels had already increased the fire risk ahead of the record-breaking heat.
At 1 p.m., The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued an air quality warning for the southern portion of Boulder due to smoke from the Dinosaur Fire. Forecasters expect smoke will settle in areas below the fire overnight and into Saturday morning. While the warning covers southern portions of Boulder County, the smoke could settle into other areas depending on weather conditions.
If visibility is less than five miles in your neighborhood, smoke has reached levels that are unhealthy, according to the release.
