This story was updated at 10:45 a.m.

The Derby Fire has burned 3,569 acres and remains 0% contained as of Friday morning, growing about 1,000 acres since the previous measurement reported Thursday morning.

There are 211 personnel working the fire, including three helicopters, four dozers and nine hand crews, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

While resources are requested and managed by the Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team 3, local crews from Eagle River Fire Protection District, Vail Fire Department and Eagle Valley Wildland are assisting with the firefighting effort.

No. 1 fire in the country

The Derby Fire is the top priority fire in the country for needing resources, according to public information officer Stefani Spencer, partially due to the fire’s proximity to communities and its growth pattern.

“They also look at the probability of success,” Spencer said of the national ranking system. “If we get these, how probable are we to have success in meeting the objective, which is to protect public land.”

Operations were focused on the southern edge of the lightning-caused fire on Thursday, with “heavy air presence” dropping water and applying retardant, said Philip Knaub, operations section chief, in a morning update.

Planes have been pulling water from various ponds across the area. The incident management team is working with local authorities to avoid any cross-contamination between bodies of water, which is a concern since the source of zebra mussels in Colorado was determined to be in Eagle County.

“If they do have to go from a contaminated area to a non-contaminated area, they have to go to the helibase and have their equipment sterilised,” Spencer said.

Knaub said suppression efforts were mostly successful Thursday, but the fire continues to grow to the south, a behavior that is expected to continue Friday and into the foreseeable future.

The main focus of Friday’s operations will be the southwest corner of the fire closest to Sweetwater, as well as the eastern edge of the blaze, Knaub said in the morning report.

More resources are en route as well, including engines and hotshot crews, all of which will be focusing on the Sweetwater Lake section of the fire. As other fires across the state wind down, resources have been reallocated to the Derby Fire.

There are 459 structures identified as threatened based on a model that predicts worst-case scenario fire spread. Most of those structures are homes in the Sweetwater Canyon area, as well as along Colorado River Road and ranches spread across the Derby Mesa area.

One structure was destroyed earlier in the week, a hunting cabin that did not serve as a primary home.

Weather and fire behavior outlook

Cloud cover and sprinkles on Friday morning showed that monsoonal moisture is moving into the area.

“As we move through today, we are expecting to continue to see that moisture feed into the area, which brings good news and bad news for the fire,” said Ryan Fliehman, a meteorologist with the interagency team managing the fire, in a weather update video on the Derby Fire Facebook page.

The good news is the chance of showers, as well as cloud cover that improves humidity and keeps temperatures lower. The bad news is that as the chance of rain rises, so do the odds of lightning and gusty winds.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday show an increased chance of “meaningful precipitation” or “wetting rain” as Fliehman described.

Into and beyond the weekend, crews expect the chance of rain to increase. However, the chance for lightning and outflow winds from passing storms will increase as well, according to an evening update posted on the Derby Fire Facebook page Thursday night.

Communicating with the community

An online community meeting was intended to go live at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, but technical difficulties led to the video being recorded and posted later in the evening on the Derby Fire Facebook page.

An in-person community meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at Gypsum Town Hall. The section chief and incident commander for the fire and the Eagle County sheriff will provide an update. So long as technology cooperates, a Facebook Live will be provided as well.

Evacuations and closures

Residents in the area of Sweetwater Lake were asked to evacuate by noon Wednesday, and about 200 to 400 residents have had to leave their homes, said Birch Barron, Eagle County’s emergency management director.

Evacuation resources were moved from an in-person center to remote and can be accessed by calling 970-328-7400.

Evacuation resources include support with shelter for displaced residents, along with clothes, food, behavioral health support and support with animals and agriculture.

The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have both issued closures in the fire area as well.

The Forest Service closure is within the Blanco and Eagle-Holy Cross Ranger Districts, starting north of Sweetwater Lake, following the Forest boundary north and east to the intersection of the Derby Loop Road (Eagle County Road 39); following Middle Derby Creek generally northwest to Island Lakes; then, generally south following the Island Lakes Trail (#1842), the W Mountain Trail (#1817), the Turret-Crescent Trail (#2269) and the Turret Creek Trail (#1838) back to Sweetwater Lake.

This closure affects BLM lands north and west of the town of Gypsum that are north of Coffee Pot Road; west of the Colorado River; east of the White River National Forest boundary; and south of Derby Creek.

Resources related to the Derby Fire can be found on ECEmergency.org.

Zoe Goldstein contributed to this report.

This story is from VailDaily.com.