© Eric Lutzens, The Denver Post
Seen from a helicopter, trees burn and plumes of smoke rise over the High Park Fire west of Fort Collins.
Seen from a helicopter, trees burn and plumes of smoke rise over the High Park Fire west of Fort Collins.
Using picks and axes, wildland teams are methodically scratching barriers into the dirt and lighting back fires, while helicopters aided by satellite imagery drop water and tankers douse areas with chemical retardant.
They're trying to pin down the monster at an anchor point, building a line to flank in the beast and pinch off its head for total containment.
"If you go out and throw people all around it then it's wasted effort," said David Liebersbach, a former Type 1 incident commander and past director of Alaska's emergency services. "You find a point where you can anchor in. You work out from that in a continuous line so you don't have a chance blowing out."
But this fire, with its ever-shifting boundaries and multiple heads, isn't a textbook case.
