Updated at 4:17 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026
Evacuations have been lifted for areas in Thornton impacted by a fire that sparked Wednesday afternoon.
The 10-acre blaze closed I-25 in the north Denver metro for about an hour and forced residents from their homes before being fully contained. Firefighters are working to put out any remaining hot spots.
The Thornton Fire Department says there were five non-critical injuries, including four firefighters and one civilian. Fire crews are likely to remain on-scene overnight to ensure that the fire doesn't reignite.
Steve Kelley, chief of the Thornton Fire Department, told reporters that the blaze could have been worse.
“The outcome of this fire — as challenging as it was — we lost no residential structures as a result of this fire,” Kelly said. “There was no fire spread to the north into the residential neighborhood between Huron and I-25 to the north of 84th Avenue.”
However, it was still unclear what damage might have occurred to local businesses.
“We did have damage to some businesses along the south side of the fire. We are continuing to evaluate,” Kelley said. “At this time, it does not appear that there was any damage to the structures.”
How the fire started
The blaze started near the interchange of Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 36 and forced the evacuation of Pinnacle High School and nearby businesses by local authorities at 12:02 p.m. this afternoon.
Officers went door-to-door, alerting residents to evacuate as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I-25 was closed in both directions, including the ramps from US-36, I-270, and I-76, but since reopened.
Per radio traffic, the fire was centered around the intersection of Huron Street and 84th Avenue, a suburban area directly north of Denver.
The state’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control assisted with the fire, and local officials requested its Multi-Mission Aircraft to fly over and assist with the response. But Tracy LeClair, a spokesperson for DFPC, said the aircraft may not be able to fly because of high winds.
What people saw on the ground
Bryan Lee, a product specialist at the Appliance Factory in Thornton, was working when staffers noticed the smell of smoke. Employees initially assumed the source was a nearby food truck.
After walking outside, however, Lee discovered black smoke thick enough to limit visibility to less than 10 feet. A police officer then arrived and told everyone to evacuate immediately.
“Luckily, the police were there on the scene to get us out safely,” Lee said.
Jason Rol owns Rol Race Motorsports on 84th Street near Huron. Around noon, he said the fire quickly raced toward his shop, and he scrambled to move as many of his vintage and specialty cars as possible.
“I was literally 5-10 feet away from it trying to just prevent it from coming through the fence, but it got so big so fast there was nothing I could do,” he told CPR News.
His hands were covered in soot. He said he started hyperventilating from smoke inhalation. Fire trucks arrived shortly after.
“My throat is sore from the smoke,” Rol said.
He hoped he hadn’t lost much inventory.
How did Xcel respond?
Emergency responders requested Xcel Energy immediately de-energize power lines in the area in response to the fire, according to radio traffic.
But it’s unclear whether Xcel actually received requests to de-energize its lines. In an email, the company said they are not proactively shutting down power in the fire’s vicinity, but that they would accommodate requests to de-energize lines from the fire department if asked.
An outage map managed by Xcel showed hundreds of customers in the immediate vicinity of the fire were without power around 1 p.m. It’s unclear if those outages were initiated by the company or were unplanned.
The fire broke out during another day of high winds and high temperatures along the Front Range. A red flag warning remains in effect until 6 p.m. on Wednesday due to low humidity and winds with gusts of up to 45 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.
CPR's Ishan Thakore, Tony Gorman, Tegan Wendland and Alejandro A. Alonso Galva contributed reporting.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to fix a misspelled name.
