Thousands of Colorado residents are fleeing their homes Thursday night as fire officials issued mandatory evacuation orders to save lives from the fastest growing wildfire in Colorado history.
Driven by high winds, dead trees, and record drought conditions, the Troublesome Fire became Colorado's third largest wildfire ever overnight.
The Troublesome fire exploded like none before, growing from 19,000 acres (76.9 square km) to more than 170,163 acres (688.7 square km) within 24 hours, reported the InciWeb, a national incident information system run by the federal government.
Ominously, the rapidly expanding blaze is threatening Estes Park, the tranquil town adjacent America's legendary Rocky Mountain national Park with over 6,000 residents.
On Thursday Estes Park residents were ordered to evacuate. Videos posted to Instagram by local resident showed skies coloured a deep red and a long line of cars attempting to evacuate.
"We plan for the worst," an exhausted Grand County Sheriff Brett Schrotelin told the media Thursday.
"But this is the worst of the worst of the worst," he said.
The other two record Colorado wildfires have occurred in the last three months, as the Centennial State has seen smoke-filled skies since July when the Cameron Peak fire exploded on the Colorado-Utah border.
Colorado's fires have been unrelenting since then.
Fire officials feared the Troublesome fire may join another large scale fire still ablaze, the Calwood fire, to create a megafire inferno.
Ironically, snow and ice were reported in Colorado's high mountains Thursday night, and a blizzard is expected to hit the region in this weekend, according to the National Weather Service. Enditem
