3 firefighters killed, two injured while responding to wildfires in far western Colorado
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) GeoColor RGB images with/without an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (above) highlighted the rapid growth of the Snyder Fire as it merged with other wildfires in far western Colorado during the day on 27 June 2026. Firefighters working the Knowles and Gore fires in far western Colorado were involved in a burnover incident, which tragically resulted in 3 deaths and 2 serious injuries.
The resulting wildfire complex burned very hot, first exhibiting the 137.88ºC saturation temperature of GOES-18 ABI Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) detectors at 1917 UTC (below).
The rapid growth of the thermal signature of this wind-driven wildfire complex was also very apparent in 1-minute GOES-18 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB imagery (below) — a surface observation site just northwest of the fire showed that southwest winds were gusting to 50 mph at 1725 UTC, and gusting to 57 mph at 2145 UTC.
