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Updated at 3:50 p.m. on Monday, March 23, 2026.
Authorities in Fremont County in Southern Colorado struggled to contain the 24 Fire at Fort Carson over the weekend. The fire remains uncontained and has ballooned to 7,404 acres. However, some of that growth is due to proactive measures to prevent the fire from spreading.
According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, about 18 miles of State Highway 115, south of Colorado Springs towards Penrose, is only open to local traffic. Fort Carson commuters are asked to avoid using Gate 6 at Wilderness Road in order to minimize traffic at the mile marker 39 road closure.
Evacuations were lifted at 2 p.m. on Monday and the evacuation center at Pathfinder Park in Florence will close, though residents can collect their livestock from the park through Tuesday. The Fremont County Office of Emergency Management will host a town hall meeting for those impacted by the fire on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Penrose Elementary School’s gymnasium.
According to an email from a Fort Carson official at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, “Control lines remain strong with no new additional acreage burned.”
The Fremont County Sheriff’s office said that fire crews were able to successfully build control lines around the fire over the weekend, effectively boxing it in, and that heavy smoke remains visible in the area. The statement said they used a backburning technique to burn areas proactively before the fire spread. That backburning activity has contributed to the total growth in acreage of the fire.
“As of this morning, control lines remain strong,” a Fort Carson official said in an email Monday.
Fort Carson issued a statement Sunday saying that crews were patrolling Highway 115 and had prevented the fire from crossing to the west side of the highway.
While Fort Carson is the main responding agency, a long list of state, local and military partners are also assisting in firefighting, including the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, the U.S. Air Force Academy, Schriever, the Space Force Base, the U.S. Forestry Service, and Colorado Springs Utilities.
