A memorial procession carried the pilot who died while fighting the Gold Mountain fire near Ouray from Montrose to Denver International Airport on Monday.
Scorched earth left in the wake of the Aspen Acres fire is seen in Colorado City on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Nicholas Dale, a 56-year-old federally contracted fire aviation pilot from Sooke, British Columbia, died after his helicopter crashed into the Silver Jack Reservoir in southwestern Gunnison County on July 12.
He was the fourth firefighter to die while battling Colorado’s summer wildfires.when they were overtaken by flames on the Western Slope as two fires from Utah converged with two fires in Colorado, together forming the As of Monday, that wildfire was 30,202 acres and 98% contained, fire officials said. The Gold Mountain fire, one of several still-active fires burning across Colorado, had consumed just over 38,000 acres at that time — Colorado’s 19th-largest wildfire on record, Dale’s memorial procession started in Montrose at 7 a.m. Monday and was expected to reach DIA around noon, according to Gunnison County officials.
A charred children’s wagon sits on the hillside across from where Aaran Krings lives with his mother suffering from lung cancer, as seen on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Beulah, Colo. Krings mother, who he recently moved in with to help during her illness is staying in Pueblo until he can get the home in a better state.
seventh-largest fire in the state’s recorded history Fire officials have said the Aspen Acres fire has destroyed close to 900 structures, at least 337 of which are homes, according to law enforcement in Pueblo and Custer counties. The wildfire’s growth has slowed in recent days as crews steadily increase containment around the flames. More than 1,300 fire personnel remained on scene Monday, according to the morning update.
Several hundred personnel left the fire over the weekend. The Gold Mountain fire burns north of Ouray at about 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 27, 2026. The wildfire has not seen significant growth in about a week, but the crews are still working on containment.
“Containment refers to how much of the fire’s perimeter has been surrounded by a control line that firefighters are confident the fire will not cross,”More than 960 personnel were on scene to fight the wildfire on Monday, according to Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 2, which is leading the fire response. The Ouray County evacuation zone was bordered to the west by County Road 8 and County Road 10, to the south by Baldy Peak, to the east by Green Mountain and the Cimarron Ridge and to the north by Tommy Creek and Deer Creek.
Evacuations were also in effect northeast of the Cimarron Ridge, along the border of Gunnison and Montrose counties, according to the map. That area is bordered to the north by Washboard Rock, to the east by Gunnison County Road 864A, to the south by Hampden Lake and to the west by Cimarron Ridge. Montrose County residents north of the mandatory evacuation zone and Gunnison County residents to the east of the zone were on pre-evacuation status at that time.
The cause of the Gold Mountain fire, which sparked shortly after 5:30 p.m. on June 27, remains under investigation The Elk fire burns north of Lake City on Wednesday, July 16, 2026. As of Monday, a lightning-sparked wildfire burning east of Ouray’s Gold Mountain fire had consumed roughly 2,300 acres with no containment,, which started on July 9 north of Lake City, triggered evacuations in Hinsdale County last week.
Mandatory evacuation orders remained in place Monday morning around the fire, including residents west of Colorado 149 and north of the Independence Gulch Trailhead to the county line. A helicopter flies over the Willow fire in Lake County on an unknown date. had consumed roughly 7,181 acres with 41% containment as of Monday morning, according to fire officials. The burn area covers roughly 11 square miles.
Mandatory evacuations remained in place Monday for an area bordered to the north by Lonesome Lake and Isolation Lakes, to the west by Twining Peak, to the south by Echo Creek and to the east by East Tennessee Creek. Investigators believe the fire, which started on June 28, is human-caused, but the exact details of its origin were not available. As of Monday morning, 690 personnel were on scene to fight the wildfire, according to fire officials.
Fire officials said 13 injuries have been reported from the fire, but did not specify if those injured were firefighters or civilians.
“Fire behavior may increase slightly as widespread thunderstorm activity has diminished,” fire officials said in the Monday update. “The fuel bed remains critically dry. ”
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