Category Archives: Forest Fires

The first monsoon storm of the season moved through Arizona last weekend, finally dampening a frightening fire season. Even before the rain started over the weekend, some 95 firefighters backed by helicopters and air tankers had achieved 75 percent containment on the 176-acre Tank Fire near Clints Well, which had briefly threatened as many as 100 homes. …Fire officials hope the start of the monsoon will reduce the danger from one of the most volatile fire seasons in years, due to the extreme dryness of the fuels. Some measurements in the Payson Ranger District showed fuel moisture levels at an all-time low.

Oregon’s fire risk has been right around normal though June, but that’s going to change for the worse for the rest of the summer. State and federal forest managers and staff Monday during a media conference call discussed the outlook of wildland fire for 2018. Noel Livingston, fire management officer on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, said a normal summer “really did ring true right up until about now.” But the warm May melted off the snowpack two weeks early, he said, and the green forests of eastern Oregon are drying out. Southern and central Oregon will be “above normal” for significant wildlife fire potential in July. And come August — the peak of the hot, dry summer — northeast Oregon also enters that red zone.

Steady weekend rains in southwest Colorado kept the 416 fire from growing much, but the storm  wasn’t enough to knock it out and officials worry a return spell of hot, dry weather this week will breathe new life in the 34,161-acre wildfire. “There hasn’t been a lot of growth since the rains came,” said Jamie Knight, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team. “It was welcome but it wasn’t enough to be a done-and-over event.” Weather forecasters call for several days of hot and dry weather before another storm could drop rain on Thursday, Knight said Monday morning. Residents of surrounding communities including Durango will see a lot more smoke coming from the fire following the rain storm, she said. There is still a tremendous amount of heat that’s trapped not only in standing and topped logs, but also beneath the surface of the ground where the heat follows tree roots, she said.

DURANGO, Colo. — A welcome dose of rain spawned by a hurricane that churned through the Pacific has given a boost in the battle against two large wildfires in Colorado and Wyoming. The remnants of Hurricane Bud slowed the growth of the a fire in southwest Colorado, which has blackened more than 50 square miles and is 25 per cent contained, The Durango Herald reported Sunday. Butch Knowlton, director of La Plata County Emergency Management, said Bud provided the perfect amount of rain, helping firefighters increase containment. …He said it kept the blaze from spreading, but crews are still putting out hot embers that could ignite dry trees, grass and shrubs.

Prime conditions for wildfires prevailed again on Wednesday in the western United States, where firefighters are battling to gain control over several large blazes that have forced the evacuation of more than 4,400 homes.  The largest and most threatening blaze, the 416 Fire, has scorched nearly 26,000 acres (10,522 hectares) of drought-parched grass, brush and timber at the edge of the San Juan National Forest near the southwestern Colorado town of Durango. Wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour (40 kph), temperatures in the mid 80s (about 30 Celsius) and humidity of less than 15 percent are expected later on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. Fire crews by Wednesday morning had contained 15 percent of the fire, fire officials said. …Across the state about 60 miles (95 km) west of Denver, a newer blaze called the Buffalo Fire prompted the evacuation of nearly 1,400 homes… Its containment was listed at 0 percent by fire officials.

The Buffalo Mountain Fire seems a lot less angry a day after it exploded into the sky Tuesday morning. The fire peaked at 91 acres and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,400 homes, but did not grow at all overnight and did not take lives or damage structures. …Berino said one critical factor in saving the neighborhoods was the massive aerial response he ordered, which involved four heavy air tankers, two very large DC-10 air tankers, and a half dozen Type I and Type III helicopters. …The other key to saving Mesa Cortina and Wildernest were fuel breaks dug in by the U.S. Forest Service back in 2011… in response to the mountain pine beetle epidemic, which killed 3.4 million acres of forest across the state and half the trees in Summit County from 2006 to 2014.

The Badger Creek Fire expanded to 5,244 acres Tuesday as the U.S. Forest Service harnessed more resources and personnel to combat the blaze, Fire Information Officer Jackie Parks said. “We believe we have about 200 personnel on scene (Tuesday),” Parks said. “We have four Hot Shot crews and two Type II crews.” Rocky Mountain Region Type II Black Team is slated to assume command of the wildfire today and is setting up an incident command center at Harmony School on Wyoming Highway 230, she said. “The sunny days with no cloud cover cause the fire to become more active in the morning and last longer in the day,” [Parks] explained. “The fire primarily continues to grow east.” …“Our primary goal is to keep people out of the area for the safety of the public and the firefighters,” Ragon said. “We really need people to take an alternate route, because this way is not safe right now.”

DENVER — A wildfire erupted Tuesday in an area of Colorado known for its ski resorts, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,300 homes and marking the latest in a series of blazes that have ignited in the drought-stricken U.S. West. The fire in central Colorado had burned only about 100 acres but was dangerously close to two densely populated housing developments near the town of Silverthorne, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Denver. “This area, there is a lot of homes that are pretty tightly packed together,” U.S. Forest Service spokesman Adam Bianchi said. …About 50 firefighters were battling the blaze initially, but more were on the way, along with heavy air tankers and helicopters. …Colorado’s largest blaze also kept burning in the San Juan National Forest, which has been closed to the public to try to prevent additional fires.

LARAMIE — The fire burning in the Snowy Range near the Colorado border spread six miles eastward and had engulfed 2,300 acres by Monday night, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Strong winds and dry weather both contributed to blaze’s spread. About 70 firefighters were fighting the blaze, which has closed highways in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. …The fire has burned mostly beetle-killed forest in the area. Several small communities of permanent and seasonal residences are under evacuation orders. They include about 100 people in the Woods Landing and Jelm areas. So far, no structures have been lost.

DENVER — Extreme fire danger prompted officials Monday to say they are shutting down a sprawling forest that includes some of Colorado’s most stunning mountains in a region that attracts tourists from around the world, a rare tactic also being used in neighboring states as the U.S. Southwest struggles with severe drought. National forests and parks in Arizona and New Mexico have already been shut down as precautions. San Juan National Forest officials in southwestern Colorado planned to close hundreds of miles of trails and thousands of miles of back roads to hikers…. It’s the first full closure of a national forest in Colorado since 2002, which was another very dry year.

The main fire is burning in steep spruce-fir timber 5 miles up the Bear Creek trail on the south side of the canyon. On Friday, embers triggered spot fires on the north side of the canyon. About 130 wildland firefighters are on scene, and there is zero percent containment. Hand crews on Sunday focused their efforts near roads on the southern end of the fire, where the mixed conifer timber, including dead or fallen ponderosa pine and fir, was more dense. The steep, rugged terrain of the Bear Creek area has limited crews’ mobility. …Tree moisture was measured at just 80 percent, when normally at this time of year they are at 200 percent, Thumm said. “The trees are stressed and dry, and ready to burn.” …Fire modeling shows there is potential for the Burro Fire and nearby 416 Fire to merge. …There have been no injuries or structures lost due to the Burro Fire.

Wildfires stoked by low humidity and high temperatures raged in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado on Saturday, threatening nearly 1,900 homes and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents from remote communities, fire officials said. The two fires, about 250 miles (400 km) apart in the drought-parched Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States, have consumed nearly 32,000 acres (12,000 hectares)between them. The larger of the two, the so-called Ute Park Fire in Colfax County, New Mexico, was zero percent contained after scorching some 30,000 acres by Saturday evening near Cimarron… About 300 structures were threatened in Cimarron, where officials issued a mandatory evacuation on Friday. The town lies just northeast of the Santa Fe National Forest, which was indefinitely closed to the public on Friday in a rare measure prompted by the heightened fire risk from prolonged drought.

You probably thought the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge had died out — but no. A small hot spot flared up early Tuesday morning about a half-mile east of the Herman Creek Trailhead. …Firefighters are using nearby creek water to extinguish it. Rachel Pawlitz with the U.S. Forest Service said this is why the fire was never declared out even though it was fully contained in November. “Fires can be burning underground in organic matter we call duff, in the roots of large trees, deep within this large timber and actually can still have heat in them through the fall rains, winter snow and spring rains,” she said. “And then here we are again.

A wildfire burning near Sedona has continued to spread, engulfing up to 230 acres of land as of Tuesday afternoon. The so-called Sycamore Fire had tripled in size since Monday evening, and was said to be 25 percent contained. The fire was first reported Monday morning. More than 100 personnel, five helicopters, one air attack, four crews and one engine were battling the flames. The fire’s source appeared to be on the west side of Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, on the Prescott National Forest and 14 miles northwest of Sedona. The fire has stayed near the canyon’s western side, burning through rough terrain, as winds push smoke west and northwest. The fire’s cause is still under investigation; however, officials said there’s reason to believe humans caused it. The fire isn’t threatening any structures so far.

State wildland firefighters plan aggressive initial attacks on Southern Oregon wildfires this season, hoping to repeat last year’s success at curbing burned acreage on non-Forest Service lands to less than one-fifth of normal. The 2018 wildfire season officially begins Friday, June 1, on lands protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry, which is taking its aggressive-but-safe approach to initial attacks on grass, brush and forest fires. Jumping early on wildfire starts proved effective in 2017, when the season opened June 4 and saw 350 fires char just over 1,000 acres during the 138-day season, according to ODF. …The quick-attack approach also helped contain 97 percent of ODF’s fires here to less than 10 acres, records show.

RESERVE, N.M. – The Latest on New Mexico wildfires: A wildfire in a remote area of the Gila National Forest in western New Mexico continues to spread as officials said Saturday that containment efforts so far have been unsuccessful due to steep, rugged terrain and extremely dry fuels. Approximately 480 firefighters and other personnel are assigned to the fire, which has burned 19.4 square miles (50 sq. kilometers) of timber since it started Tuesday east of Reserve and north of the Eagle Peak Lookout. Its cause is under investigation. Firefighting efforts include burning out some areas along roads on the fire’s eastern and western edges.