FLAMES RIP PAPER TRUCK IN EASTERN COLORADO, SEMI BLAZE ON WESTERN SLOPE

UPDATE

Fire tore through a semi-truck carrying a shipment of paper products on Highway 40/287 in eastern Colorado. Wednesday night's intense blaze was "extremely hard to put out," Hugo Fire Protection District said. The Colorado Department of Transportation sent a front-end loader "to help open the trailer and spread out the products," officials said. Crews from the Limon Area Fire Protection District and North East Lincoln Fire Protection District shuttled water to the blaze, officials said. Meantime on I-70 on the Western Slope, fire gutted a semi-truck in Mesa County overnight, the state patrol said.

[Photos: Hugo Fire, Colorado State Patrol]

Scene of Mesa County blaze on I-70