Yuma County Fire Updates

Jake Brockwell with the Office of Emergency Management in Yuma held a press conference with updates on the fire situation in Yuma County earlier today. According to Rockwell, Yuma County was first hit with the wind storm around 8:40 PM Wednesday with gusts of up to 70 mph.

The wind started three fires in the area and knocked down many power lines which they believe may have caused the fires, but did not confirm. Two of the fires are contained but the third is active.

The two contained fires spanned 2,000 and 50 acres, and the fire they’re still working to contain has damaged 12,000 acres of land.

They believe there was some structure damage from the fires, but nothing major. Wind speeds have stayed up, they are still monitoring for new fires but firefighters are focused on containing the large fire that’s still active. The National Weather Service informed them the wind event would die down by 6:00 MT tonight.

Rockwell also said half of Yuma lost power at the beginning of the wind storm in addition to the town of Wray. Eckley also lost power, and as of the recording of the live press conference, is still out of power.

More updates will be on their Facebook page at this link: https://www.facebook.com/YumaCountySheriff