'Particularly Dangerous Situation' Fire Weather Conditions Expected Today In Colorado, Wyoming Front Range
- - 'Particularly Dangerous Situation' Fire Weather Conditions Expected Today In Colorado, Wyoming Front Range
Jonathan Belles December 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM
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An extremely dangerous fire weather day is ahead for communities in the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming.
Heightened fire weather alerts were issued by the National Weather Service through Friday evening.
"Today will feature what [the National Weather Service calls] a Particularly Dangerous Situation regarding potential for rapid wildfire spread. That's due to very high winds combined with an extremely dry airmass and near record temperatures." This is the first such PDS warning for the state of Colorado.
Happening Now: Wind gusts of 75+ mph are already occurring. The strongest gust so far is 113 mph at the NCAR Mesa Lab in Boulder, Colorado. Denver has already recorded a record high.
At least a few smaller fires have been spotted from near Colorado Springs (seen below) to Boulder.
At least one wildfire had to be extinguished near Fort Collins on Thursday due to strong winds. Conditions today are expected to be considerably more favorable for fire growth.
Conditions will gradually become less favorable for fire growth overnight with increasing humidity and decreasing winds.
The Big Picture: A robust low pressure system is moving through southern Canada. To the south, over the Rockies, strong winds moving from west to east will blast across the Rockies. A strong, dry downsloping effect will lead to extremely strong winds and very dry air on the Colorado and Wyoming front range today.
These conditions could lead to extremely rapid fire growth at any time today through late-evening.
(WEATHER WORDS: Chinook Winds)
What You : You should have your go bag with any essentials ready today. You can find a list that should be in your fire evacuation bags here. If you spot a wildfire or a downed electrical line, please call the authorities.
Xcel Energy in Colorado pre-emptively turned off power to some customers earlier this week to avoid sparking fires. Strong winds often bring down powerlines and that can create fires, which can spread rapidly on days like today. Additional outages are expected both from the incoming wind event and also as a safety measure from the power companies.
More than 100,000 outages were being reported as of late Friday evening, according to poweroutage.us. These were mostly located in the higher elevations west of Denver with few outages in the city.
This area is familiar with fire events around the holidays. In 2021, the Marshall Fire erupted in Boulder County just before the new year and burned nearly 1000 structures. It killed two people. It is Colorado's most destructive wildfire.
The Details:
- Highs: Record warmth in the 60s to low 70s Friday afternoon. This is 2-3 degrees above previous daily record highs in Denver and Cheyenne.
- Humidity: Could drop as low as 8% around Denver, but will be below 15% for the Front Range and into the Interstate-25 corridor. These will rise Friday night into early Saturday.
- Winds: Wind gusts will exceed 70 mph in the higher elevations west of Interstate-25 between Interstates 70 and 80, including Evergreen, Boulder, Estes Park and Jamestown, Colorado. Wind gusts on some peaks will eclipse 100 mph. Sustained winds are likely to be over 45 mph at times. These gusts will decrease overnight.
- Lack of Precipitation: Much of the region is in a moderate to severe drought and snowfall lately has been lacking.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
