Three firefighters died on Saturday and two suffered burns in a blaze sweeping the Utah-Colorado border, the U.S. Wildland Fire Service said in a statement.
The crew was helping fight the Knowles and Gore wildfires, the statement said. Several agencies have deployed firefighters to western Colorado, where those fires merged with the Snyder fire and have devoured 28,000 acres.
Wildfires over the past week have charred the Southwest, where warmer winters, low snowpack and high winds have turned the arid landscape into fuel. Fires have reached into Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.
In Colorado, flames suddenly overwhelmed the federal firefighters, who tried to take shelter amid heat and smoke, the Department of Interior said in a statement.
At the Grand Junction Regional Airport, a medevac helicopter landed about 9:30 a.m. Sunday in a stiff wind that kept flags outstretched to the east. More than a dozen firefighters from state and local agencies were watching and waiting, standing with gurneys on the tarmac.
They stood at attention as the three bodies, draped in flags, were taken from the helicopter and loaded into the coroner’s vans. The drivers stepped out to allow dirty, sooty firefighters who had come from the fireline to drive the bodies of their comrades.
A cortege of emergency vehicles with lights flashing then drove slowly on Interstate 70 toward the coroner’s office. More than 50 firefighters lined the hallway there, and others escorted the bodies inside.
“The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stands united with the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in grief and in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind,” the agency said in a statement. The agency did not identify the victims.
Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado declared a disaster late Saturday. The move centralizes the response and activates the National Guard.
In Utah, 11 large wildfires raged as of Sunday morning, blackening more than 208,000 acres. The largest is the Cottonwood fire, which started near the city of Beaver, in the southwestern part of the state.
That blaze has grown to at least 93,000 acres in a week, with none of it contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Gov. Spencer Cox called Cottonwood the “most destructive fire in the state’s history” in terms of property loss. No injuries or deaths have been reported.
Firefighters on the ground and in the air had to pull out on Friday, and scout for safer ways to attack the blaze, the U.S. Forest Service said.
On Saturday, crews removed fuel from the fire’s path, using rakes, shovels and axes to hack at brush and vegetation. But authorities are not sure whether their defenses will hold.
“We have been making progress all across the landscape, we have line in place around the majority of it, but a lot of the line hasn’t been tested,” said Alyssa Mason, a spokeswoman for Great Basin Team 5, the federal group leading the response.
Fires can start innocently, Ms. Mason said on Saturday. A chain dragging behind a truck can set off sparks and ignite roadside brush. Authorities have taken precautions to limit the threat. Last week, Governor Cox signed an executive order temporarily restricting fireworks through the July 4 holiday weekend.
Red flag warnings remain in effect across the Southwest. Winds could reach up to 40 miles per hour and humidity is expected to remain low, according to the National Weather Service.
As smoke has billowed over the mountains and canyons, residents have watched cabins and campgrounds, homes and infrastructure disappear in the flames.
Evacuation orders have been issued across Colorado. Communities outside the city of Ouray, in the southern part of the state, have been ordered to leave. Video on social media shows the ridgeline engulfed in flames Saturday night, as the fire ominously rushed downhill.
“There are only so many places for attacking fire in steep terrain, and first responders have to be very diligent where they put people,” Ouray County said in a statement.
In Mesa County, Colo., on the border of Utah, authorities have issued a pre-evacuation order, as pop-up fires merge, burning nearly 30,000 acres.
“It’s pretty somber here,” said Cody Davis, a county commissioner in Grand Junction, where the skies have been thick with smoke.
Among the firefighters protecting the area is Joe Simard, a member of Truckee Hotshots, a highly trained crew based in Truckee, Calif., who was sent to Utah.
His father, Paul Simard, of San Luis Obispo, Calif., awoke early Sunday and used a location-sharing app to check on his son. Normally, Joe keeps the family updated, but his phone hadn’t moved for four hours.
“I started to worry, worry, worry, and then I woke up my wife, and both of us began to worry,” he said. Joe later texted that he was safe.
Lisa Simard, his mother, said she felt a wave of relief when the families of victims had all been notified, and no one had contacted her.
“Then it switched to complete sorrow for the mothers that lost a child,” she said in a text message.
Georgia Gee contributed research.
