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Wolverine Fire grows to 300 acres Thursday

The Wolverine Fire in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area grew slightly to about 300 acres Thursday morning, Forest Service officials said.

The wildfire grew about 18 acres since Wednesday, but it could pick up with warm and dry weather expected during the weekend, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Diann Ritschard said.

The fire is burning about 18 miles northwest of Steamboat Springs in an area popular with recreational users and hunters and has forced closure of 38,400 acres of public lands for safety reasons.

The Wolverine Fire is being managed as a fire-use fire, which means it is allowed to burn within predetermined parameters to benefit natural resources. It is being monitored by helicopter.

Also Thursday, Forest Service employees began fighting the Honda Fire, which is in Salt Park in the Northern Flat Tops about 30 miles southwest of Hayden. The fire was one-third of an acre and was burning in spruce and fir stands. The cause of the fire is not known.

Officials are working to put out the fire because it is not in an area predetermined for fire-use fires.

Man accused of careless driving, leaving scene

A 50-year-old Denver man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of failing to report an accident, careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident.

Robert Rael reportedly was driving his Ford truck with an attached camper trailer at about 5 p.m. Sunday on Routt County Road 80 when he apparently lost control of the vehicle and rolled it down a steep embankment, Colorado State Patrol Trooper Melissa Remner said.

The vehicle rolled 1 1/4 times.

Rael suffered a shoulder injury during the accident.

Rael reportedly called a tow-truck company to get his vehicle, but he decided not to have the vehicle towed after the company informed the man that if he was involved in an accident, company officials would have to notify police.

The man left the scene of the accident with several other people and went to the Steamboat Springs motel where he was staying, Remner said.

After several attempts to contact the man, State Patrol troopers were able to get him to open his motel door at about 8:30 p.m. Rael was arrested, and he faces the three misdemeanor charges.