Boulder wildfire forces more than 1,000 home evacuations

A massive wildfire burning in Boulder County has placed more than 1,000 homes under a mandatory evacuation.

The fire, named the Sunshine Fire, first started at around 1:40 a.m. Sunday morning.

According to the Boulder Office of Emergency Management’s twitter page, the fire is estimated to be around 62 acres and is 20 percent contained.

Air quality is a huge concern as the day progresses as well.

{“url”:”https://twitter.com/BoulderOEM/status/843552221296017409″,”author_name”:”Boulder OEM”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/BoulderOEM”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;20% containment area is in the area of Sunshine Canyon Dr. and Centennial Trail. &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/SunshineFire?src=hash”&#gt;#SunshineFire&#lt;/a&#gt; FB: ttp://ow.ly/pikc30a3mmt &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/vj6g2Xcz71″&#gt;pic.twitter.com/vj6g2Xcz71&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Boulder OEM (@BoulderOEM) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/BoulderOEM/status/843552221296017409″&#gt;March 19, 2017&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}

A total of 426 homes were evacuated on Sunday morning, and around 836 homes remain on a pre-evacuation list as a precaution.

Evacuated residents can use the East Boulder Community Center for shelter.

The Boulder County Fairgrounds will be used to accept large animals from the evacuation zone beginning at 9 a.m. The public Call Center is open to taking residents’ questions at 303-413-7730. This is for non-emergency calls only.

Here is a list of road closures in the area provided by the Boulder OEM:

Poorman Road at Sunshine Canyon Road Timber Trail at Sunshine Canyon Road Sunshine Canyon Drive at Mapleton Ave at 4th

Soft Closure:

Boulder Canyon Drive at Pearl Street (avoid this area if possible)

A red flag warning remains in effect for the rest of the day.

For more updates on the fire, visit the Boulder Office of Emergency Management website.