Now 750 acres, Crosho Fire sparks evacuations in South Routt, as weather is ripe for growth

An evacuation center has been set up at South Routt Elementary School in Yampa.

A map of evacuation zones from Routt County Emergency Management. (Routt County/Screenshot)

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 2:30 p.m. Routt County Emergency Management has issued mandatory evacuation orders for two zones to the east of the growing Crosho Fire on Wednesday, which was estimated to be roughly 750 acres on Wednesday at noon.

County emergency management officials updated an evacuation map on Wednesday, which now has 13 different zones. Zones three and four have been told to evacuate, while zones 2, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are in pre-evacuation.

An evacuation center has been set up at South Routt Elementary School at 448 Main Street in Yampa. The Center will be open and staffed from 2:00-8:00 pm on August 12, 2025. It will be open from 8:00 am-5:00 pm daily as needed. The shelter is not an overnight shelter, rather it is available for information and temporary necessities. Animals are not allowed. Please see information about evacuating with animals below.

If you have livestock that need to be evacuation, call Todd Hagenbuch at 970-846-5607. For household pets, call the Routt County Humane Society at 970-879-7247.

An air-scooper aircraft drops water over the Crosho Fire on Wednesday Afternoon.

The fire had grown to 500 acres in size as of Wednesday morning, but smoke rising from the fire was more widespread as of noon Wednesday. While there was one plume of smoke Tuesday, the fire appeared to be giving off multiple plumes of smoke.

Just after 1 p.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Grand Junction issued a Red Flag Warning for the area over the fire and all of Routt County. The warning denotes conditions are ripe for fires to start and spread.

An update posted after Noon on InciWeb says that aerial suppression efforts are continuing on Wednesday, with the priority being structure protection. Nearby landowners have been contacted and plans have been made to move livestock if needed.

This is a developing news story and will be updated as information becomes available.