A digital photograph of flames from the Cameron Peak wildfire taken on a smartphone by Larimer County firefighter Mark T. Spring, August 17, 2020. The image shows a winding road passing through trees near Rustic, Colorado, with hazy brown smoke filling the air. A helicopter lifting a "bambi bucket" of water taken from Chambers Lake is visible hovering in the distance.
Mark's team traveled to several different areas to fight the fires between August 13-17 and October 17-22, including Rustic, Chambers Lake, Masonville, Bellvue, and Redstone Canyon. The fire was ultimately contained on December 13, and officially controlled on January 12, 2021. In all, 208,913 acres burned in Arapahoe National Forest, Roosevelt National Forest, and Rocky Mountain National Park, making it the largest wildfire in Colorado history. The previous record had been set just a few months prior by the Pine Gulch Fire near Grand Junction.