Residents near Grinnell Boulevard and Wageman Drive were ordered to evacuate immediately Monday evening after a fire broke out near the 6200 block of Passing Sky Drive in the Security-Widefield area of El Paso County. The blaze ignited near residential blocks before pushing toward major roadways, prompting an urgent public safety response as crews scrambled to protect homes in the area.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office posted the evacuation order Monday around 3 p.m. local time, telling everyone in the Grinnell Boulevard and Wageman Drive area to evacuate now and to check local media for updates. The fire hit the 6200 block of Passing Sky Drive, which sits within the Painted Sky at Waterview subdivision, a master-planned single-family home development south of Bradley Road, according to property records reviewed on Spatialest.
Crews Hold Eastern Line as Northwest Flank Stays Active
Fire incident command reported Monday that crews held the fire line near Bradley Road and Goldfield Drive and made significant progress containing the blaze's eastern edge, even as the northwest side remained active, according to a report shared on Facebook. To keep the area clear for emergency apparatus, officials closed Bradley Road at both Grinnell Boulevard and Goldfield Drive, restricting traffic near the fire zone so crews could maneuver freely while keeping civilians out of danger, per the same account.
Local broadcast station KRDO confirmed Monday that mandatory evacuation orders were active near Bradley Road and Goldfield Drive in response to the fire on the 6200 block of Passing Sky Drive, relaying the Sheriff's Office orders after they first circulated on social media. Primary fire suppression for the neighborhood falls to the Security Fire Protection District, which serves this stretch of unincorporated El Paso County in the absence of a unified municipal fire department, according to filings with the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department.
Extreme Heat Compounds the Danger
The fire broke out as a Heat Advisory from the National Weather Service in Pueblo remained in effect for southern El Paso County Monday, with high temperatures ranging between 92 and 100 degrees. Those conditions add to the difficulty crews face containing a wildland-adjacent fire pushing toward populated streets in the heat of a Colorado summer.
Evacuation notices in the county are typically distributed through Peak Alerts, a regional emergency notification platform operated by the El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority using Everbridge, which lets public safety agencies target geo-fenced neighborhoods with automated phone, text, and email alerts. That coordination matters here: unincorporated El Paso County was already operating under Stage I Fire Restrictions Monday, following a May order from Sheriff Joseph Roybal that allowed personal gas and charcoal cooking while banning open burning and private fireworks countywide, as per Hoodline.
A Densely Populated District Under Strain
The Security Fire Protection District covers more than 55 square miles of unincorporated El Paso County, serving over 55,000 residents and more than 17,000 residential rooftops with 24-hour career firefighters supplemented by volunteers, according to the district's own safety materials. That scale underscores the stakes of a fire breaking out in a densely built suburban subdivision during a heat advisory.
Large grass and wildland fires in unincorporated parts of the county typically trigger multi-agency mutual aid, since the El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority coordinates dispatch across 23 fire protection districts, 10 municipalities, and local military installations region-wide, per the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. As of Monday evening, the Sheriff's Office had directed residents to monitor local media for further updates while crews continued working to fully contain the fire.
