A wildfire has erupted near the Royal Gorge bridge in southern Colorado and continues to grow. The blaze is currently estimated to be burning on more than 300 acres, according to The Denver Post.
The Royal Gorge Bridge and Park's webcam was showing a large plume of smoke in the background of the bridge earlier in the day, but appeared to have taken the live webcam video down in the afternoon.
The Gazette reports that evacuations have been ordered for the south side of the Royal Gorge park.
The Gazette's Daniel Chacon tweeted that the fire which started on the south side of the Arkansas River, jumped to the north side.
Fremont County fire crews are battling the blaze, according to KRDO.
The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for all of southern Colorado with low relative moisture in the area and dry fuels. Temperature is at 95 degrees at the gorge and winds are approximately 30-40 mph.
Pike Interagency Hotshot Crew, a 20 person wildland hotshot crew, were dispatched on Tuesday to fight the blaze, announced via Twitter:
It's unclear if "Royal Gorge Fire," as Pike IHC refer to it, is the official name of the blaze. They also tweeted this photo of the large smoke plume:
There are no injuries at this time.
Details of the exact location of the fire were still not available at the time of publication.
This is a developing story...
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