Updated 2:40 p.m., Thursday, March 12
Strong wind gusts disrupted life along the Northern Front Range on Thursday, as residents and emergency crews encountered power outages, road closures and evacuation notices.
Xcel Energy estimated about 26,000 residents in Colorado were without power Thursday afternoon. Many of the 151 outages they reported were unplanned, the utility provider said.
Intense gusts knocked out power in nearby Wellington on Thursday morning and forced the closure of Interstate 25 from Fort Collins to Cheyenne. High winds knocked down trees and powerlines and caused the closure of Poudre School District's mountain schools, according to NOCOalert.org.
A wildfire that sparked near Terry Lake, north of Fort Collins, forced mandatory evacuations in the surrounding neighborhoods around noon Thursday. Fleeing residents clogged roads in the area as they tried to evacuate.
Those alerts were canceled, and residents allowed to return home about an hour later as crews brought what was dubbed the Starry Fire under control, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office said in a post on the NOCO Alert update system.
CSU Larimer County, located just south of Terry Lake, canceled all classes, meetings and activities starting at 3:30 today due to high winds. An advisory from CSU asks people to leave campus as soon as possible and to remain indoors until then.
West of Fort Collins, crews quickly extinguished a separate blaze near Bellevue early Thursday afternoon.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service have placed the Front Range under a Red Flag Warning -- which indicates a higher risk for wildfire due to high winds and dry conditions -- until 9 tonight.
NWS issued an additional "fire weather" alert for tomorrow along the Front Range.
Check back for updates at KUNC.org.