Around 2045 UTC on 2 July 2018, the Pueblo County EM office called WFO Pueblo for assistance in pinpointing the location of smoke being reported near Custer/Fremont/Pueblo County lines. At the time of the call, no hot spots were apparent in GOES-16 3.9 um imagery. However, within a few minutes, a hot spot appeared in northeast Custer County, 5 miles west of Wetmore (Fig 1). WFO Pueblo returned the phone call and provided the lat/lon of the hot spot. Being in a remote and wooded area, the early and more precise geolocation of the fire was helpful for getting crews on scene quickly. This fire is called the “Adobe Fire”, and was last reported as 20 acres on Monday afternoon.

Figure 1: 2 July 2018 GOES-16 5-min 3.9 um shortwave IR imagery. Loop ends at time when hot spot was obvious, and when return phone call was made. Full res

Bill Line, NWS