Firefighters continue to fight the Cold Springs fire near Nederland today.
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Almost 2,000 people were evacuated, after the fire started Saturday northeast of Nederland.
To the north, a 566-acre fire near Nederland had destroyed eight homes, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
Two out-of-state campers, Jimmy Andrew Suggs, 28, and Zackary Ryan Kuykendall, 26, of Vinemont, Alabama, have been arrested and booked into Boulder County Jail.
The fire perimeter contains 65 structures.
Pelle said that investigators believed the suspects tried unsuccessfully to put the fire out by piling dirt and rocks on top of it.
They were arrested Sunday at a shelter for people evacuated by the fire, which has burned about a square mile and has been fueled by hot, dry weather. A day before they were coincidentally interviewed by a reporter from the Daily Camera about the fire with Suggs saying they had “never seen anything like it”.
It’s not clear how long Suggs and Kuykendall had been camping in the area along with a 20-year-old woman who investigators say didn’t help build the fire. Suggs and Kuykendall briefly appeared in court in Boulder on Monday.
The Spring Gulch Fire burned 11 acres in the Pike National Forest, three miles south of Deckers, in Douglas County, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
Several wildfires are burning in Colorado, including one that has scorched nearly 19 square miles near Salida.
The Fort Carson Fire is burning on the training range located in the southwest area of Fort Carson.
Colorado’s largest current wildfire – Beaver Creek Fire – has blackened more than 30 square miles of beetle-killed timber in the northwest part of the state near Wyoming. Firefighters don’t expect to have that blaze contained until October.
In this Saturday July 9, 2016 photo, a helicopter prepares for a water drop, fighting a wildfire in Nederland, Colo. Both women were evacuated from their homes but say their homes are still standing.
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Tuesday morning, officials said active firefighting activity is still going on in the areas near Cold Springs, Ridge Road, and Boulder Canyon Rd. near Barker Reservoir, and those areas remain closed to all traffic.
