Firefighters Gaining Ground in Colorado and New Mexico

As the High Park Fire, in Colorado, nears 50,000 acres, new evacuation notices continue to be sent out.

Others are slowly being allowed in as the fire stops threatening some areas.

About 1,000 personnel are fighting the fire, having reached ten percent containment.

Around twenty aircraft, including Colorado National Guard helicopters are involved in trying to stop the fire, which has killed one.

At least one hundred homes have been damaged or destroyed by the flames.

Meanwhile in New Mexico fire fighters are near thirty-five percent containment on the Little Bear Fire.

Thirty-seven thousand acres and two hundred and twenty-four homes have burned down there.

Twenty-five hundred people have been evacuated, with nine thousand on standby.

Four hundred New Mexico National Guardsmen have joined six hundred others in fighting it.

The Little Bear Fire is in the same area as a fire that in 1944 brought fame to a bear cub, as he became Smokey the Bear.