Colorado fire burns in erratic winds, threatens homes

FORT COLLINS, March 28: A wildfire driven by erratic winds charred up to 1,000 acres and threatened ore than 50 homes in northern Colorado, prompting hundreds of evacuation orders.
Firefighters saved two homes and a state park visitors’ center from flames, authorities said. They said no homes had been destroyed. The fire began west of Fort Collins and was burning west of Horsetooth Reservoir, near the scene of a large wildfire last summer that burned 259 homes and killed one person.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Department said 860 phone lines got automated calls ordering evacuations, but some addresses have multiple lines and other numbers were cellphones, so the exact number of homes in the evacuation area was not known.
Residents of a neighborhood north of the fire were allowed to go home. Authorities said 281 evacuation calls had been made to that area. Some people believed to be hiking in Lory State Park were unaccounted for, but sheriff’s spokesman Nick Christensen said they were not believed to be in imminent danger. Park rangers were looking for them.-DNA