Big Pivots The East Troublesome Fire photographed on Oct. 20, 2020 by Brad White, fire chief of the Grand Fire Protection District in Granby. Colorado’s scariest wildfire in 2020 was not its largest. East Troublesome shocked because of its sprint and then its leap. It grew by 87,000 acres in a fiery dash across the headwaters of the Colorado River and past Grand Lake, most of that in just a couple hours. Smoke plumes rose 40,000 feet. The winds, variously estimated at 50 to 100 mph, were strong enough to bend over lodgepole pines. Then embers vaulted across two miles of treeless tundra at the Continental Divide, raining into the Estes Valley, at the eastern gate to Rocky Mountain National Park.