COLIMA, MX - Mexico’s Colima volcano, better known as the 'Volcano of Fire,' erupted this past Thursday, and eruptions have continued to intensify since. Mexican officials are now evacuating residents in both Colima and Jalisco in fear that a larger eruption is on its way, reports say.

A more than 7.5-mile area surrounding the volcano was shuttered over fears of a larger eruption, the BBC reports. Explosions have been occurring since Thursday on the volcano’s slopes, and columns of ash have spewed as high as 1.7 miles into the sky.

"The communities in this 12km radius are very small and don't exceed 800 inhabitants. They have all been evacuated," said Luis Felipe Puente, Civil Protection Co-Ordinator for Colima.

Government officials in Colima are calling the activity at Colima “atypical," saying that eruptions of this type and intensity hadn't been seen since the volcano’s largest explosive eruption in 1913, the Associated Press reports.

Authorities are monitoring the volcanic activity “minute by minute,” RT reports, expecting one of three possible scenarios: a slow fading of activity over the next months, the collapse of the volcano’s domes, or a major explosive eruption.