Fire restrictions lifted by Gunnison County, Forest Service and BLM

Drought conditions remain a worry…but camp fires okay

As of the beginning of this week fire restrictions for Bureau of Land Management lands, Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests lands and Gunnison County unincorporated areas have been lifted.

The agencies put stage-one fire restrictions into place in the above areas a month ago, even as they worked to contain several large wildfires in the surrounding areas. Ongoing hot and windy weather, coupled with drought conditions and afternoon lightning strikes were cited as reasons behind the heightened fire danger.
Officials had hoped to mitigate the danger of human-caused fires in this already-primed ecosystem by activating the restrictions, which prohibited uncontained camp fires, fireworks and smoking outside of designated areas, among other things.
According to Gunnison County fire marshal Dennis Spritzer and Gunnison County undersheriff Randy Barnes, the restrictions, in addition to some luck, were effective in minimizing fire occurrences, and now with almost an inch of rain in the last month and monsoons on the horizon the risk of fire has declined.
“Since we implemented the ban we’ve had probably four or five lightning strikes, but they stayed where they were,” said Spritzer. “There were no human starts of fires during the ban.”
The BLM and GMUG National Forests both removed their fire bans on July 22, and the county followed suit on July 23 when the Board of County Commissioners adopted a resolution to repeal the fire restrictions.
However, the removal of regional fire restrictions does not mean fire is no longer a risk.
“We still are in a drought state, more or less, and even though we’ve had some decent rains from the monsoons it doesn’t mean those base conditions have changed drastically,” said Spritzer. “It doesn’t take much for the forest to dry out and the moisture content of fuels to go down again, creating prime fire conditions. People need to be extra careful now, and that means not leaving fires unattended, drowning or smothering campfires and taking extra precautions in fire-prone areas.”
For more fire-related information visit www.gunnisoncounty.org and http://www.fs.usda.gov/gmug.