One spark a hot June 8, 2002. 138,000 acres of Colorado forest reduced to ashes. U.S. Forest Service employee Terry Barton went to prison; 133 families lost their homes. It took six weeks to finally extinguish.

JUNE 8: Smoke is first reported about 5 p.m. off Forest Service Road 290 about a mile west of Park County Road 77. By late Saturday, it has burned more than 100 acres.

JUNE 9: The Hayman fire, named for a mining ghost town near Tappan Gulch, consumes 19,000 acres, sending towering smoke plumes skyward. Several small communities and dozens of subdivisions are evacuated.

JUNE 10: Fire races northeastward, toward Denver suburbs, then reverses when the wind shifts. Now two days old, the fire has consumed 77,000 acres. Thousands have been evacuated.

JUNE 11: Fire growth slows, but three major fronts to the fire emerge, on the north, east and south, as it splits around Cheesman Reservoir.

JUNE 12: Fire grows to 90,000 acres and jumps across parts of perimeter fire line. The day starts with 450 firefighters on the scene; the day ends with 1,800 more ordered. More than 5,000 people evacuated so far.

JUNE 13: Cooler temperatures give firefighters a chance to catch up, slightly. Containment remains at 5 percent, but some evacuated families are permitted to return to their homes. Lake George is told to get ready to evacuate. Nearly 100,000 acres are burned; 2,200 firefighters are on the blaze.

JUNE 14: Air Force C-130 slurry bombers join the fight. The fire slows dramatically, growing to 102,900 acres.

JUNE 15: Fire stalls and containment rises to 40 percent. Feared high winds fail to materialize.

JUNE 16: U.S. Forest Service technician and former firefighter Terry Lynn Barton is arrested on suspicion of starting the Hayman fire, which remains at 103,000 acres. Favorable weather helps containment rise to 47 percent.

JUNE 17: The fire breaks out along a two-mile front and runs for about two miles, growing by 3,000 acres. Smoke settles over Colorado Springs. Numerous Teller County subdivisions are evacuated. Barton is formally charged in federal court.

JUNE 18: Fire erupts, fed by stiff winds, racing eastward and devouring 23,000 more acres toward towns in El Paso and Douglas counties. Rampart Range Road is evacuated. Palmer Lake is asked to evacuate voluntarily. Containment drops to 40 percent.

JUNE 19: Thousands of people from Palmer Lake in northern El Paso County and as far north as Perry Park in western Douglas County, evacuated from their homes 12 hours earlier, take a deep breath as higher humidity dampens the fire and a wind shift pushes it west. Woodland Park residents relax a bit as fire containment lines, dug by some of the 2,223 firefighters on the scene, hold.

JUNE 20: Calm winds, clouds and even rain help firefighters as they work to dig a trench around the Hayman fire, which now has charred 137,000 acres and cost $17.3 million to fight. About 700 evacuees are allowed to return home.

JUNE 21: Firefighters call Friday an ‘’excellent day’’ as they toil to close the crucial eastern flank to prevent the blaze from entering El Paso County. In Parachute on the Western Slope, a van carrying fire personnel to the Hayman fire crashes on Interstate 70, killing four and injuring seven.

JUNE 22: The day started with fears that winds and hotter, drier weather would drive the fire through the eastern flank. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, firefighters make more progress as the fire becomes 67 percent contained and evacuations are lifted in eight Teller County subdivisions.

JUNE 29: The last people evacuated from the fire zone are allowed to return home. Many had been out of their homes for nearly three weeks.

JULY 2: The Hayman fire is declared 100 percent contained.

JULY 18: The fire is under control.