Westbound Interstate 70 ropened Monday morning near Frisco after a crash, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
The westbound interstate was closed between Exit 203 for Colorado 9 and East Frisco and Exit 201 for Frisco, about 3 miles west of Silverthorne, CDOT officials said in an 11:18 a.m. post on X.
More than 10 people are trapped underground in a Colorado gold mine on Pikes Peak after an equipment malfunction, according to the Teller County Sheriff’s Office and Denver7.
The sheriff’s office was responding to an equipment malfunction at the Mollie Kathleen Mine, a tourist destination near Cripple Creek, as of 2 p.m., agency officials said in a post on Facebook.
Gov. Jared Polis is “closely monitoring” the situation and state emergency personnel are on scene responding with more on the way, the governor’s office said in a news release.
“The state is assisting Teller County and sending resources to rescue those inside the mine. We will do everything possible and assist the county to ensure a speedy and safe resolution of the situation,” Polis said in a statement.
The now-defunct mine offers hourlong tours by taking visitors 1,000 feet down the shaft into the southwest side of Pikes Peak, according to the tour company’s website.
The mine has offered tours in some format since it opened in the 1890s, with mine tours becoming the main focus after production ceased in 1961.
Regional Transporation District buses will replace part of the light rail’s W Line near Lakewood during weekend repairs, according to RTD officials.
The W Line will be closed down between the Garrison and Sheridan stations from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Sunday as crews repair overhead wires damaged by vandalism last month, RTD officials said in a news release.
The last three trips of Friday night’s normal W Line train schedule will be canceled this week, RTD officials said. The last trains will leave Union Station around 11:22 p.m. and the Jefferson County Government Center/Golden Station around 11:24 p.m..
The W Line will be closed all day Saturday between the Sheridan and Garrison stations, RTD officials said. Buses will replace trains between the two stations.
Riders can board the buses at:
Sheridan Station at 10th and Ames streets: Riders can board at eastbound and westbound Route 9 bus stops.
Lamar Station at 13th and Lamar streets: Riders can board at eastbound and westbound Route 9 bus stops.
Lakewood/Wadsworth Station: Riders can board next to the light rail platform.
Garrison Station: Riders can board next to the rail platform.
RTD officials said the first three normally scheduled W Line trips will be canceled on Sunday, with full service returning around 6 a.m.
One person was injured in a crash involving six motorists on the westbound side of Interstate 70 on Monday, Denver police announced.
The injured person has been taken to the hospital with serious injuries, the Denver Police Department wrote in a post on X.
The crash occurred on westbound I-70 where it crosses Havana Street on the east side of the city. Police are warning commuters to expect delays in the area.
No further information about the cause of the crash was immediately available.
The suspect in Thursday’s fatal hostage situation and shootout at Broomfield’s Arista Flats apartment complex and the woman he held hostage lived in the same apartment, property managers said.
In an email to residents, Arista Flats management said the hostage and gunman lived together, but the relationship between the two is still unknown.
“As you likely know, there was a domestic violence incident in our community early in the morning of Sept. 12, 2024, that involved a male resident firing shots inside and outside of a unit and injuring a female resident who resided in the same unit,” management wrote in the email. “The incident ended after a short stand-off with law enforcement and the resident was taken into custody.”
The hours-long standoff with police at the Arista Flats complex ended with the death of the woman hostage and police taking a seriously injured gunman into custody.
Police did not specify who shot the woman, but said Thursday at least one Broomfield officer fired his weapon at the suspect.
Police have not publically identified the gunman and the woman he’d held hostage, but Broomfield Police Department spokeswoman Rachel Haslett said criminal charges against the 34-year-old suspect “are forthcoming.”
Residents who were evacuated from Arista Flats during Thursday’s hostage situation and investigation can return home Friday, police said.
The number of residents evacuated from the apartment complex was not available Friday.
Officers set up a ladder at the scene of a shooting and hostage situation at Broomfield apartment complex Arista Flats in Broomfield, Colorado on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The south stairwell in building 15 of Arista Flats — 11332 Central Court — remains closed for the investigation, police said. Residents can use any other entrance.
A mama bear was fatally shot by a San Juan County sheriff’s deputy in Silverton this week after a beanbag round used to haze wildlife penetrated her stomach.
Several people called 911 just after 9 p.m. Tuesday to report someone harassing bear cubs near the 1300 block of Greene Street, the sheriff’s office said Thursday.
A deputy arrived to find a crowd of people in a narrow alley with a mama bear and her two cubs and directed the bystanders to leave the area before using a beanbag round to get the sow off the roof.
As the bear headed down the block with her cubs, the officer used a second beanbag round to keep her moving out of downtown. The second shot penetrated the bear’s lower abdomen and killed her, the sheriff’s office said.
Sheriff’s officials contacted Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers, who removed the bear and captured, tagged and relocated the two cubs.
“The officer involved was acting accordingly, using commonly practiced methods, and attempting to save this bear’s life, not cause any serious harm. This is a most unfortunate incident, and our entire office is saddened by the outcome,” agency officials said in a statement.
While orphaned bear cubs can be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center in Del Norte, wildlife officers determined the two cubs could be released immediately, said CPW spokesperson John Livingston.
“These cubs were in good body condition, at a great weight for this time of year and released to a place with ample natural forage to continue to pack on weight ahead of denning this winter,” Livingston said.
While bear sightings are not uncommon in town, Silverton Mayor Dayna Kranker issued a statement calling for community members to form a coalition to reduce harm from human-wildlife interactions.
Three people were killed after the driver of a Jeep Grand Cherokee hit two Colorado Department of Transportation employees working outside their vehicle on U.S. 6 near Palisade.
Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to a fatal crash on westbound U.S. 6 between Palisade and Clifton in Mesa County around 10:42 a.m. Wednesday, agency officials said in a news release.
Investigators determined the driver of the Jeep Grand Cherokee struck two CDOT workers who were working outside of their vehicle and then hit a parked CDOT vehicle, causing the Jeep to roll.
The CDOT vehicle was parked off the right side of the road, CSP officials said.
One person in the Jeep was taken to the hospital and a second person in the Jeep died at the scene. Both CDOT workers died at the scene.
Troopers are still investigating the cause of the crash, according to the agency.
One person died and another was injured in a Thursday morning, single-vehicle crash in Denver’s Windsor neighborhood.
Officers responded to reports of a crash near South Clinton Street and East Alameda Avenue early Thursday morning, according to a 12:36 a.m. statement from the Denver Police Department.
The intersection is just north of the Windsor Gardens Community Center and northeast of Windsor Lake.
One car was involved in the crash, but paramedics took two people to the hospital with serious injuries, police said. Police did not specify if the second person involved in the crash was a passenger or a pedestrian.
A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office K-9 bit a child and the child’s father after escaping from his handler’s backyard in Castle Rock on Sunday.
Around 4 p.m. Sunday, the dog escaped its outdoor enclosure at his handler’s home in Castle Rock and jumped over a 5-foot fence separating the backyard from a neighboring yard.
The dog bit a child and the child’s father who tried to intervene, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Wednesday. The handler “gained control” of the dog after realizing he had escaped.
Both the child and his father were treated at a hospital and are recovering at home, according to the sheriff’s office.
The agency is cooperating with an investigation by the Castle Rock Police Department as well as conducting an internal investigation.
The handler, who was not named in the news release, is on paid administrative leave. The dog is in a 10-day quarantine and barred from contact with humans other than the handler and all animals.
Sheriff’s officials are reviewing the dog’s future as a member of the K-9 unit, agency officials said Wednesday.
“We are devastated by this incident and are fully committed to supporting the family during their recovery,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The flaming carcass of an electrocuted bird was determined to be the cause of a July brush fire in Arapahoe County that burned more than 1,100 acres and destroyed property southeast of Byers, according to a report released Friday by the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.
The Quail Hollow Fire report, issued by the Byers Fire Protection District and the Strasburg Fire Protection District, said on the morning of July 13, a small bird came into contact with an energized electrical pole on the south side of 2490 S. Quail Hollow Drive.
The bird’s flaming body then fell into vegetation at the base of the power pole which provided the initial fuel for the fire, the report said.
Dry vegetation, heavy fuel load in the area, winds and the local topography allowed the fire to spread, the report said.
The fire was ruled accidental.
One residential home and at least twelve outbuildings were destroyed in the blaze, the report said.
Byers and Strasburg Fire responded to the fire around 10:09 a.m. and reported a “slow-moving fire in medium fuels moving to the south.”
Minutes later, the fire was upgraded to “large brush fire” when flames reached heavy timbers, the report said. The I-70 corridor large brush fire response was activated and mutual aid resources were requested as the fire grew and moved.
As wildfires burned thousands of acres across the Front Range on Wednesday, some residents heeded early morning calls to leave while others opted to stay put on land that already required extra self-sufficiency.
At the Dakota Ridge High School, the evacuation site for the Quarry fire burning near Deer Creek Canyon in Jefferson County, John Banks coughed in the parking lot as smoke from the fire threatening his neighborhood hung heavily in the air.
Banks and his wife, Diane, fled the fire early Wednesday after a 1:30 a.m. phone call ordered them to evacuate.
The couple slept in their car overnight with their rescue cat, Mea, and the few items they scooped from their home after the evacuation call: medications, some clothes, John’s oxygen tanks and cancer medications, and Mea’s food and litter.
They left everything else behind in the home where they’ve lived for 34 years.
“These are just things,” said Banks, 78.
He paused, emotion creeping into his voice.
“If you lose things, you still have your friends, your family.”
The couple found a hotel to stay in for the next night and planned to spend Wednesday going to pre-scheduled doctor appointments.
“Life throws spitballs at you,” John Banks said. “But you keep going.”
When the couple arrived at the evacuation center at Dakota Ridge High School at 3 a.m. Wednesday, they were one of the first people to arrive.
By 9 a.m., dozens of cars were parked at the school — some of the nearly 600 households ordered to evacuate from the Quarry fire. A few evacuees took time to walk their dogs. In the next lot over, a Denver Fire Department crew suited up to respond to the fire.
Elden Coombs, 85, sat with his neighbors in the parking lot waiting for news. He moved to the Homewood Park neighborhood in 1969 and has lived through two other fires, a blizzard and two floods.
Quarry fire evacuee Elden Coombs waits in the shade at the evacuation center at Dakota Ridge High School in Jefferson County on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Coombs had to evacuate from the Homewood Park area. (Photo by Andy Cross/ The Denver Post)
He left his home after getting the evacuation call at about 2 a.m. He grabbed some clothes, important documents and his medicine and fled.
“I haven’t been to bed,” he said. “I just hope they get the fire under control.”
At the frontlines of the Stone Canyon fire north of Lyons, Boulder County sheriff’s Sgt. Cody Sears patrolled the still-unburned areas where flames were flaring and spreading.
“So far, so good. We’ll see what the winds do,” Sears said as he rolled out around 11 a.m. Wednesday
He went first to an area where flames had taken a run to the northeast, threatening evacuated houses a couple of miles north of Lyons, then headed to terrain straddling Boulder and Larimer counties, a few miles south of the Alexander Mountain Fire — where residents apparently had elected to stay, hunkering down on their land.
Through smoke on Dakota Ridge Road, Sears spotted two horses: one brown, one white. He radioed county animal control crews, alerting them to a possible rescue. He was uneasy. “This fire is still really active,” he said.
But he and fellow officers, reaching homes there, found residents well in control.
At a front door in the area, Carmen Roberts, 50, came to the door and told him she and her family had stayed through the night. They had water tanks, heavy equipment, and were ready to evacuate with their horses if the flames came too close, she said.
Boulder County sheriff’s Sgt. Cody Sears talks to Carmen Roberts about her decision to remain in her home and not evacuate despite the incoming Stone Canyon fire near Lyons on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo by Zachary Spindler-Krage/The Denver Post)
“We’ve have been here over 30 years. We’ve been through these things several times,” Roberts said. “We have everything packed, out by the door. We are going to go if we need to.”
They’d slept a bit through the night. “When it happens over and over and over, the stress is less,” she said.
Yet fire perils seem to be increasing along Colorado’s Front Range, Roberts acknowledged. The problem is more and more people moving in, she said. “Fire is worse now because it affects more people. It is threatening more homes because there are more homes around.”
Near the top of Stone Canyon, business owner Matthew Lee, too, had spent the night on his property — 80 acres where he’d grazed cattle this spring before moving them away about three weeks ago, leaving the grass short enough to ease his worries.
The fire was burning within a quarter mile of his metal-roofed house.
He’d parked down the hill and, leaning on the back of his truck, looked upward. On Tuesday night, power went out at 10:30 p.m. and his cellphone went dead, said Lee, 55.
Early Wednesday, he told Sears, flames crested over the ridge. Slurry bombers dropped red fire retardant on that terrain as he watched.
He had declined to evacuate — like other self-reliant residents in the foothills north of Lyons. He lauded Colorado’s approach of aggressive fire suppression, dousing flames before fires can run their natural course.
“The most I have seen,” he said. “Yesterday, it was an air show. That’s good.”
For the first time since they were reintroduced to the state in December, Colorado’s gray wolves have moved out of central Grand County, state wildlife officials said in their July report.
In July, the 11 wolves and one pup stayed relatively in the same watershed areas as they did in May and June, traveling between Routt, Jackson, Larimer, Grand, Eagle and Summit counties, according to a new location map released Tuesday by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
CPW releases a map each month showing which watersheds the state’s collared wolves have traveled in, wildlife officials said. A wolf may or may not remain there now, and it may not have traversed every part of that watershed.
A map released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows collared wolf activity detected by watershed in the mountains between June 25, 2024, and July 23, 2024. (Provided by Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
The updated map shows wolf activity from June 25 through July 23 in watersheds from the Wyoming border to Interstate 70 and from west of Craig in Moffat County to west of Fort Collins in Larimer County.
While the monthly maps from December to June have shown wolves using watersheds across Grand County to the border of Boulder County, the July map showcases a lack of data in the area, indicating that wolves didn’t visit the area at all during July.
The collars record a GPS position every four hours and send the data to state biologists once four locations are recorded, CPW officials said. State officials do not share specific locations to protect the wolves and may “buffer” maps to protect wolves during certain times of year, such as mating season.
Although July’s map highlighted watershed areas south of Interstate 70, CPW officials said no wolves had passed the major highway and the population was exploring land to the north.
Since then, CPW officials said two of the wolves have mated together and given birth to at least one pup, and a pair of Wyoming-based wolves naturally migrated into the state and joined the Colorado pack.
Two of the ten collars placed on wolves in December stopped working, but those two wolves are still alive and traveling with other wolves with functioning collars, state officials said in April. There are no current plans to recollar the wolves or place collars on any of the pups.
The map’s accuracy will drop over time as wolves move into Colorado from other states, collars stop working and more wolves mate together and give birth to pups, state wildlife officials said. The goal is to keep at least two collared wolves in each pack.
World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and in service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.
For seven years, Dick worked to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.
The veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1941, according to his son. The service was renamed the U.S. Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
“He grew up through the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three square meals a day.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson (bottom center) poses with a B-24 crew after completing a six hour training flight. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson later became the co-pilot of a B-24 bomber plane in the 484th Bombardment Group combat unit. A week after D-Day, while stationed in southern Italy, his crew was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while flying to Munich.
“They lost an engine, and they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bombers, so they had to turn around to go back,” Dick said. “Two of the gunners were killed on the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think they had two more engines shot out.
“But there was a big fire in the bomb bay so they had to get out of the plane. So they did, and everybody bailed out, the ones that were still alive.”
Shell fragments struck Olson’s leg and he sustained a back injury that left him with chronic pain.
Most of the men landed on the Italian coastline northeast of Venice, according to conversations Dick had with B-24 crew member John Hassan. He was transferred to two other POW camps and after 10 months of incarceration, Olson was liberated on April 29, 1945, from Moosburg, Germany.
“He just said it was a very dull existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There was not a whole lot to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross supplied them with books and boardgames and sporting equipment and different things to keep their morale up.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson’s identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson stayed in the Air Force for 16 years after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the military in 1961, according to his obituary.
“My parents split when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He moved away from the household and they got divorced.”
After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran passed away in 1996 from multiple myeloma.
“I was always interested in his Air Force career. And since he never talked about these other guys, I wanted to find them and talk to them myself,” Dick said.
He connected with John Hassan, the navigator in Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “Going through some of his papers, I found a phone number for John and called him up and started looking for all the other crew members also,” Dick said, “I eventually did make contact with the ones that were living or family members for the ones who had passed away.
“John was my dad’s best friend on the crew and we became really good friends,” Dick added. “He pretty much had a photographic memory, so that’s how I know an awful lot about that crew.”
While researching the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bombardier, Walter Chapman, get a Distinguished Flying Cross he should have been awarded decades prior.
Like Chapman, Olson was also missing an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while in the line of duty.
“There was mention of everything else, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals that he was entitled to, except for the Purple Heart.”
A collection of medals, honors and other items made by Dick Olson for his late father WWII veteran Major Richard Olson at his home in Westminster, Colorado, on Jun 19, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Olson’s capture as a POW right after the B-24 crash meant his wounds went undocumented. In 2017, Dick decided to file a claim with the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records and prove that his father had been injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I’ve got to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.
After an extensive filing process, the Board for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.
Brian Schenk, founder of Midwest Military and Veterans Law, agreed to work with Dick pro bono and together, they took the Board for Correction to federal court, determined to prove that Olson had been injured during active duty.
“Dick Olson’s father was a war hero and he had such extreme humility that he himself never sought a Purple Heart,” Schenk told the Denver Post.
“I thought to myself, the old man went through the wringer, and he deserves to have this,” Dick said. “I told the Air Force in the letter that I wrote with my first application that I’m doing it for his legacy and for posterity. People should know that he was injured fighting for his country.”
On April 23, Dick won his case and the Board for Correction agreed to posthumously grant Olson a Purple Heart Award.
“He would have been real happy to wear this purple heart,” Dick said. “I think he would have been pretty proud of the fight we put up to make this happen.”
Terrell Ronin Warrior was arrested Monday on suspicion of second-degree murder in a stabbing in the 12000 block of Melody Drive that killed one man Saturday morning, Westminster police said in a news release.
Officers responded to the area near Willowbrook Park and Wesley Chapel Cemetery in northern Westminster at 9:10 a.m. and found a man with a stab wound to the chest. He died at the scene.
Warrior will be booked into the Adams County Detention Facility, according to Westminster police. His age and bail information was not immediately available.
Westbound Interstate 76 under the Dahlia Street bridge in Commerce City and the bridge itself will close this weekend for construction, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
From 10 p.m. on Friday to 5 a.m. on Monday, westbound I-76 at exit 9 and Dahlia Street over the interstate will be closed for repair work, according to a CDOT news release.
This weekend, the following detours are in effect:
Westbound I-76 traffic will use the exit 9 off-ramp to West U.S. 6/South U.S. 85, continue south to 74th Avenue/Colorado 224, turn west and continue to the westbound I-76 on-ramp.
Northbound Dahlia Street traffic will detour east on 74th Avenue/Colorado 224, turn north on U.S. 6/U.S. 85 to join eastbound I-76, exit at 88th Avenue and go west.
Southbound Dahlia Street traffic will detour west on the I-76 Frontage Road, turn east on 74th Avenue/Colorado 224 and continue to Dahlia Street.
Once this weekend’s work is completed, there will be ongoing single-lane closures overnight on I-76, CDOT officials said. The lane will be closed from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. during the week, and from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. on the weekend. Northbound Dahlia Street over I-76 will continue to be closed until the project is completed.
CDOT officials expect construction to wrap up in mid-July.
Homes along Middle Creek Canyon Road are still under mandatory evacuation orders, and homes on Vine Mesa, Cascade Avenue, Pine Avenue and Beulah Highlands Road are on pre-evacuation, fire officials said Wednesday.
Fire crews are working to construct fire lines along the fire’s edge as well as away from the fire’s edge and are mainly focusing on protecting structures, according to the update. Firefighters are focusing on the eastern edge to keep the fire from advancing toward Beulah.
The National Forest Service closed the Pike-San Isabel National Forests west of Beulah until July 26 because of the fire, from Forest Road 386 to the north to Colorado 78 to the south and Colorado 165 to the west.
Closed trails include South Creek, Second Mace, Second Mace Spur, Silver Circle, Left Hand, Squirrel Creek, Mountain Park, Coupler, Dome Rock and Middle Creek, according to the agency.
Davenport Campground, Second Mace/Squirrel Creek Trailhead, Mingus Cabin and Squirrel Creek Interpretive Site are also closed.
Eastbound Interstate 70 is closed for a tractor-trailer fire and several other crashes between Silverthorne and Georgetown, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
The tractor-trailer caught fire on eastbound I-70 near Georgetown, and multiple crashes with multiple injuries have blocked the highway.
One five-vehicle crash involving a tractor-trailer sent three people to the hospital with injuries, according to state patrol. Their injuries do not appear to be serious, but “clean up will be extensive,” officials said in a post on X.
A plane crashed into a Steamboat Springs mobile home park on Monday afternoon, starting a fire involving at least two homes, according to Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue.
A Cessna 421 crashed into the West Acres mobile home park, 2990 W. Acres Drive, at 4:23 p.m., engulfing two homes and several outbuildings, Steamboat Springs police said on Facebook.
All mobile home residents have been accounted for, but information about how many passengers were inside the Cessna was not immediately available.
The mobile home park is just south of the single-runway Steamboat Springs Airport, which is also known as Bob Adams Field.
