Mullen Fire slows growth

While the Mullen Fire continued to see an increase in size within the past week, the arrival of cooler temperatures and some moisture have aided in both containment and limited growth in the past few days.

Between October 5 and October 13, the Mullen Fire grew by nearly 25,000 acres. While still concerning, that increase is limited compared to the more than 10,000 acre daily runs the fire was taking since it started on September 17.

As of October 13, the Mullen Fire was at 30 percent containment. That is an increase from the 14 percent containment seen last week. That containment area includes the entire western fire line extending from the Tie Hack Lower Trailhead and extending down into Colorado and stopping at the Colorado-Wyoming border near Mountain Home. Another area of containment is between Albany and Fox Park where the Mullen Fire ran into the burn scare of the 2006 Isabelle Fire and the 2012 Squirrel Creek Fire.

Despite the success in preventing the fire from further spreading into Colorado, a change in wind direction led to the Mullen Fire changing directions. Instead of pushing to the south, the Mullen Fire has begun to move north and northeast, keeping it on the path towards Centennial, which has been on pre-evacuation notice for the past few weeks. While Ryan Park is not listed as being on pre-evacuation notice, concern has been expressed about the fire’s movement towards the community.

During a morning debrief on October 9, John Wallace, operations section chief for the Southern Area Blue Team, informed viewers that they had been having difficulties with the fire.

“I went up and really put some eyes on the ground yesterday and flew this area. After doing that, we’ve decided that we’re going to not put folks in here anymore. We’re just not making any progress with it,” said Wallace. “There’s a lot of dead and down trees, there’s a lot of hay fuels and we’re just not able to accomplish anything in there.”

One thing, however, is in the way of the fire pushing towards Ryan Park that Wallace hoped could be used to the advantage of fire crews.

“That fire is slowly progressing it’s way to the north and northwest. It has to get through French Creek Canyon before it can impact any more people and infrastructure,” Wallace said. “So, we’re going to be watching it very closely as it moves down into French Creek Canyon. We think we’re going to have a really good opportunity as it moves down into that canyon to pick it up.”

As of the morning of October 13, the Mullen Fire was at 176,047 acres and had 1,215 total personnel attached to it. An expected containment date of October 30 is still expected.