Updated 1:13 PM ET
(CBS/AP) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Heat and flames from a destructive wildfire threatening Colorado's second-largest city were too intense Wednesday morning for authorities to fully assess the damage it caused overnight.
Officials don't know how many houses have been destroyed in the towering blaze that has forced mandatory evacuations for more than 32,000 residents, Colorado Springs emergency management director Brett Waters said. Among those urgently evacuated Tuesday evening were residents at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
The blaze doubled in size overnight to about 24 square miles, fire information officer Rob Dyerberg said.
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Heavy smoke and ash billowed from the mountain foothills west of the city. Bright yellow and orange flames flared in the night, often signaling another home lost to the Waldo Canyon Fire, the No. 1 priority for the nation's firefighters.
"It was like looking at the worst movie set you could imagine," Gov. John Hickenlooper said after flying over the 9-square-mile fire late Tuesday. "It's almost surreal. You look at that, and it's like nothing I've seen before."
With flames cresting a ridge high above its campus, the Air Force Academy told more than 2,100 residents to evacuate 600 households.
As curtain of flame and smoke hung above the academy's Falcon Stadium late Tuesday, billowing gray clouds formed a backdrop to its aluminum, glass and steel Cadet Chapel, an icon of the academy.
Jill Owosko spent four years building a home in Boulder, specially designed for her respiratory problems. She moved in just last week, but had to evacuate Tuesday, reports Rick Sallinger, a correspondent for CBS 4 in Denver.
"Every day I say I should pack a bag and have it ready [because] I have medicine and oxygen and stuff I need. And I didn't. There's the lesson," Owosko said.
Elsewhere, police officers directing traffic and fleeing residents covered their faces with T-shirts and bandanas to breathe through the smoke.
"This is a firestorm of epic proportions," Colorado Springs Fire Chief Richard Brown said.
Christine Williams and her daughter Serina saw flames consuming grass just 30 yards from their northwest Colorado Springs apartment complex when they fled.
"It was pretty close," Serina Williams said Wednesday. "It was too close for comfort, that's for sure. It's like we've had our life swiped out from underneath us."
Sarah Safranek was in tears as she sought information about her house.
"Right now I'd rather not know," she said.
Thunderstorms are expected near the blaze in the afternoon, but incident commander Rich Harvey says they could bring unpredictable winds that would hinder firefighters' efforts near the city of 419,000 people.
The fire is about 5 percent contained, Harvey said.
Throughout the interior West, firefighters have toiled for days in searing, record-setting heat against fires fueled by prolonged drought. Most, if not all, of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana were under red flag warnings, meaning extreme fire danger.
The nation is experiencing "a super-heated spike on top of a decades-long warming trend," said Derek Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Elsewhere in Colorado, the 136-square-mile High Park Fire has destroyed 257 homes, authorities said. That fire was triggered by lightning June 9.
And elsewhere in the West:
-- A blaze in central Utah has burned down 56 structures, the majority of which are homes, officials said Wednesday. Authorities are about halfway through their damage assessment of a fire that has burned about 46,000 acres, or 72 square miles. Officials returned to an evacuated area and found a woman dead Tuesday.
-- A wildfire north of Billings, Mont., caused hundreds of families to be evacuated from their homes as the blaze burned more than 18,000 acres, or about 28 square miles. Musselshell County Attorney Kent Sipe told The Billings Gazette that at least 60 homes had burned.
-- A wildfire in the Bridger-Teton National Forest has grown from about 2,000 acres to 12,000 acres, or nearly 19 square miles, officials said Wednesday.
Rick Sallinger, of CBS station KCNC in Denver, has the latest on the huge blaze. To see his report, click on the video in the player above.
