Gliding off thousands of acres of baked, blackened earth, water from a Tuesday afternoon thunderstorm has caused widespread flash flooding in the Aspen Acres burn scar.

“The force of the water is just unreal,” said Sayra Bassett, who was out Wednesday cleaning up around her parents’ property near Northcreek Road in Beulah.

Wednesday evening, the rains returned with force, leading the National Weather Service to announce an emergency evacuation and another flash flood warning. Forecasters warned residents in the northern and central scar area, including Beulah, San Isabel and Wetmore, around 7 p.m. that a couple of inches of rain had fallen and that rainfall was expected to continue at 1.5 to 3 inches per hour.

The Rye fire chief reported significant flood damage to three homes on Custer County Road 378 across the highway from the San Isabel Lodge, according to a late Wednesday night social media post from the Custer County Sheriff’s Office.

The 101,921-acre fire is still burning west of Pueblo. The latest containment has reached 66%, but areas along the west remain uncontained.

Bassett said the flow included the expected wildfire debris, like felled and burned trees, but also propane tanks and other manmade objects. Pictures released from the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office showed at least one vehicle caught in the flooding.

Colorado 165 and 78 remain closed due to fire activity, compounded now by flash flooding. A rock and debris flow hit Colorado 165 north of Rye and close to McKenzie Junction, said Kathy Torgerson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pueblo.

The Custer County Sheriff’s Office said in a post that flooding and road damage were reported around Copper Gulch Road, the community of Wetmore and the Aspen Acres neighborhood.

Bassett, whose family has lived in the area for decades, said flooding was not a surprise. She said her neighbors had already prepared by stacking sandbags, and most homes sit above the flood plain.

She said the consistency of the debris is one of the worst parts of a flood after a wildfire: Black silt covered everything, including her clothes, Wednesday afternoon. It made for an unpleasant cleanup.

“Poor people up there just can’t catch a break,” Bassett said.

Fire and rain

The burn scar received varying amounts of precipitation Tuesday, and more came on Wednesday evening, Torgerson said.

North of Beulah, radar tracking indicated that 1 to 3 inches of rain fell. On the southwest side, radar indicated about 1½ inches.

Wildfires greatly increase the chance of flash flooding. When fire burns hot enough, soil can become hydrophobic, repelling water instead of absorbing it. The U.S. Forest Service has deployed a BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) Team to investigate where the fire burned the hottest and where soils will be most primed for causing flash flooding downstream.

Preliminary reports suggest that some of the most severe soil burning is near Beulah, the middle part of the fire.

“We found that the northern and southern ends of the fire are a little bit more resilient,” Torgerson said.

Working on the latest information, she said the weather agency was issuing flash flood alerts in that area if more than 0.25 inches of rain was forecast in an hour.

Risk for flash flooding continued Wednesday in southern Colorado.

A flash flood watch was issued for El Paso County, as well as the southern Interstate 25 corridor, Teller County, the burn scars and part of the Eastern Plains starting at noon and running through 9 p.m., said Casey Dorn, a meteorologist with Gazette news partner KOAA.

“In the burn scar zones, this flooding may once again be significant if heavy thunderstorms roll over the fire, with debris flows possible. Heavy rain has saturated the ground and made flooding easier,” Dorn said.

Torgerson said the forecast dries up later in the week, with the next likely day for rain on the Aspen Acres fire being Tuesday of next week. The monsoonal pattern that brings moisture up from the Pacific into the U.S. Southwest is shifting away from Colorado, she said.

Precipitation still trending below normal

Colorado Springs received nearly an inch of rain Tuesday but remains below normal precipitation, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A station in Colorado Springs has logged about 6 inches of rain total, while an average year sees about 10 inches by this time.

Precipitation readings near the Pueblo Reservoir show the area has received about 3.75 inches, while a normal year sees about 7.8.

Statewide, Colorado still faces consequences from a historically low snowpack, which reduced spring runoff.

All of southern Colorado remains in drought this year based on data released last week from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Some areas of the central mountains and eastern plains have shifted into the highest “exceptional” drought category, while almost all of the Aspen Acres fire was categorized as “extreme” drought, the second-highest rating.