How to set a fixed width column with CSS flexbox

You should use the flex or flex-basis property rather than width. Read more on MDN.

.flexbox .red {
  flex: 0 0 25em;
}

The flex CSS property is a shorthand property specifying the ability of a flex item to alter its dimensions to fill available space. It contains:

flex-grow: 0;     /* do not grow   - initial value: 0 */
flex-shrink: 0;   /* do not shrink - initial value: 1 */
flex-basis: 25em; /* width/height  - initial value: auto */

A simple demo shows how to set the first column to 50px fixed width.

.flexbox {
  display: flex;
}
.red {
  background: red;
  flex: 0 0 50px;
}
.green {
  background: green;
  flex: 1;
}
.blue {
  background: blue;
  flex: 1;
}

<div class="flexbox">
  <div class="red">1</div>
  <div class="green">2</div>
  <div class="blue">3</div>
</div>

See the updated codepen based on your code.