The cause of most of the smoke and ash over Colorado is the Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire in western New Mexico, which grew to 82,252 acres Saturday.
Twelve cabins and 13 outbuildings have been lost in the fire.
9NEWS Meteorologist Marty Coniglio says that the strong southerly winds ahead of an advancing cold front push the smoke and haze into our state.
Marty says that winds will become much lighter overnight and shift to come out of the west which should make the air quality improve across most of Colorado Sunday.
Lightning sparked the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire on May 16. It is zero percent contained. Fire officials have been unable to make progress containing the blaze because of heavy winds.
Shannon Borders, Public Affairs Specialist with the Bureau of Land Management says a fire, called the Sunrise Mine Fire, broke out around 5 p.m on Friday just north of the town of Paradox in Montrose County.
Borders said the fire is near Buckyeye Reservoir, and the public is being asked to stay away from the reservoir today due to fire danger and heavy smoke in the area.
The Sunrise Mine Fire has already burned 2,000 acres. Fire crews are doing fire mitigation around five or six homes that are in the area of the fire, but Borders says those homes are not in any immediate threat from the fire. She said no structures have been burned by the fire, and no evacuation orders of any kind have been given out.
Fire managers held a meeting at 7 a.m. on Saturday to asses the size of the fire and develop a plan of attack. Borders said the BLM did haver aircraft in the air Saturday morning to get a better picture of the terrain and the size of the fire.
There are also several fires burning in Arizona and Southern California.
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