The lightning-sparked Lee Fire was the defining blaze of the 2025 season and the first fire since 2020 to crack the all-time top five by acreage.
Igniting August 2, 2025 in the Piceance Creek area southwest of Meeker, the Lee Fire grew to roughly 137,758 acres across remote BLM rangeland in northwest Colorado. It threatened ranchland and damaged electric lines critical to regional natural-gas production.
Every major Colorado fire reinforces the same lesson: the homes most likely to survive are the ones prepared before a fire starts. It is a recent reminder that Colorado’s largest fires now arrive in nearly every decade, and that risk reaches energy and ranching country, not just the forested Front Range. Creating defensible space, hardening the home against embers, and documenting the work for insurance and grant funding are the highest-leverage steps a homeowner can take.
Not sure where your property stands? Check your wildfire risk score in under a minute, watch for new starts on the active fires map, and set up emergency fire alerts so you never miss an evacuation order.
The Pine Gulch Fire (2020) burned 139,007 acres north of Grand Junction. Briefly Colorado's largest wildfire ever, cause, size, timeline and why it caused so little damage.
Read the overviewThe Cameron Peak Fire (2020) burned 208,913 acres in Larimer County, the largest wildfire in Colorado history. Size, cause, homes destroyed, timeline and aftermath.
Read the overviewThe Grizzly Creek Fire (2020) burned 32,631 acres in Glenwood Canyon and shut down I-70 for two weeks. Cause, timeline, debris flows and aftermath.
Read the overviewThe complete, searchable record of every major Colorado wildfire in history.
Open the full guideAbout 137,758 acres, making it among the largest wildfires in Colorado history and the biggest since 2020.
Lightning, on August 2, 2025.
