Spring Fire: Man arrested on arson charges in connection with massive blaze

Jesper Jorgenson, 52, was taken into custody sometime Saturday, San Luis Valley Emergency officials said during an early afternoon community meeting for evacuees held at the Blanca/Fort Garland Community Center.

Jorgenson, who was arrested without incident by Costilla County deputies, was being held on arson charges. No other information related to those charges was immediately released.

Deputies said Jorgenson's arrest was made possible thanks to the work of several agencies, including the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), state arson investigators, the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) and Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents (ICE).

It's unclear at this point why ICE was involved in the arrest.

The Spring Fire, which is burning five miles east of Fort Garland in Costilla and Huerfano counties, grew to 38,136 acres by Saturday morning. The blaze remains at 0 percent containment.

Highway 160 remains closed due to fire activity along the road and there is no estimate of reopening at this time. Highway 12 is also closed in the Cuchara Valley area due to mandatory evacuations, officials said in a Saturday morning update.

For a current list of evacuations in Huerfano County please visit the Huerfano County Facebook page at facebook.com/HuerfanoCountyOEM. For evacuations in Costilla County visit the San Luis Valley Emergency page at slvemergency.org for a current evacuation map.