Residents in northern Fort Collins were awoken on Thursday morning by police and firefighters asking them to evacuate.
“We got a knock at about two or two thirty,” said Brandon Goble, a resident who was evacuated. “Right away, we smelled smoke.”
Just west of Goble’s home, near the intersection of Overland Trail and Vine Drive, firefighters from Poudre Fire Authority were battling a fire that sparked in a pile of wood.
“We arrived to a quarter acre fire,” said Josh Woodmansee, battalion chief for PFA.
Woodmansee said the fire was sparked after people did not properly extinguish a camp fire on a Colorado State University property in northern Fort Collins. Embers, blown by strong overnight winds, made their way to a pile of wood that then caught fire.
“As they went to attack the fire, we had heavy winds come in,” Woodmansee said.
Goble and his wife quickly gathered their important items, as well as their farm animals, and evacuated the area as quickly as possible.