Two people found dead in a garage late Thursday as firefighters battle to a 'draw' with blaze near Colorado Springs

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Two people were found dead in Colorado on Thursday as firefighters battled to a "draw" with a fast-moving fire that has become the most destructive in the state's history.

The El Paso County sheriff, Terry Maketa, said crews had found the remains of two people who appeared to be trying to flee the Black Forest residential area outside Colorado Springs.

The victims were found in a garage and apparently died in the first hours after the fire ignited on Tuesday afternoon.

"The car doors were open as if they were loading or grabbing last-minute things," Maketa said.

The fire was covering about 25 sq miles on Friday after crews were able to keep it from spreading despite swirling winds and bone-dry conditions, said Maketa.

Little more than 36 hours after it started in the Black Forest area north-east of Colorado Springs, the blaze had surpassed last June's Waldo Canyon fire as the most destructive in state history. That blaze burned 347 homes and killed two people.

Thursday began sombrely, with Maketa drawing audible gasps as he announced the number of homes lost. But by late that afternoon, a film of much-needed clouds stretched out overhead, as Maketa and other officials described determined efforts to keep the conflagration from spreading to more densely populated areas to the south and west.

In one instance, Maketa said, firefighters stood with their backs to the wall of a rural school building and successfully fought back the flames. "These guys just decided they were going to take a stand and save that building," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, residents were ordered to leave 1,000 homes in Colorado Springs – the first within the city limits. About 38,000 other people living across roughly 70 sq miles were already under orders to get out.

'Sometimes it's just nature'

Black Forest, where the blaze began, is described as the largest contiguous stretch of ponderosa pine in the US – a thick, wide carpet of vegetation rolling down from the Rampart range that thins out to the high grasslands of Colorado's eastern plains.

It offers a case study in the challenges of tamping down wildfires across the west, especially with growing populations, rising temperatures and a historic drought.

Once home to rural towns and summer cabins, Black Forest is dotted with million-dollar homes and gated communities – the result of the state's population boom over the past two decades. El Paso County saw double-digit population growth in the last decade and is now Colorado's largest county, with an economy driven by military and defence spending.

Nigel Thompson, a computer programmer who moved to a house on a 60-acre Black Forest lot in 1997, said he had cut down trees to form a firebreak and fitted fire-retardant roof tiles after taking in evacuees from a fire five years ago, but "it didn't make a damn difference at the end of the day". His home was incinerated on Tuesday.

"If you're surrounded by people who haven't done anything, it doesn't matter what you do," Thompson said. "It's interesting that you can have a house in a forest and the building code doesn't say anything about the roof design."

Homes built on windy mountain roads appeal to homebuyers seeking privacy but often hamper efforts to stamp out fire. The El Paso County commissioner, Darryl Glenn, who represents Black Forest, said the commission has tried to ensure that new developments have brush clearance and easy emergency access.

"Sometimes it's just nature," he said. "When you have a fire like this in a semi-arid environment, there's not a lot you can do."

Other fires burned in Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and California.

In Canon City, 50 miles south-west of Black Forest, the 5 sq mile Royal Gorge fire was 20% contained on Thursday. It destroyed 20 structures, many at Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, and damaged wooden planks on a suspension bridge 955ft above the Arkansas river. An aerial tram was destroyed.

A lightning-sparked fire in Rocky Mountain national park was burning on about 300 acres, less than originally estimated.