Gold Mountain Fire spreads into part of the county

“The area going toward Gunnison is still expected to grow”

by Katherine Nettles 

The Gold Mountain Fire is still growing, and moved into southwestern Gunnison County this week with no signs of slowing as evacuations were mandated in areas near Cimmaron and voluntary evacuations are in place for areas immediately adjacent to the north and east. Representatives from Gunnison County Emergency Services as well as Health and Human Services shared updates with county commissioners on Tuesday regarding the fire activity, evacuations and air quality. Air quality throughout the county, including in Crested Butte, has been consistently in the “unhealthy risk area” category for days.

The Gold Mountain Fire started on June 27 in Ouray County and had spread to just more than 31,000 acres as of press time with 8% containment.

  “It made some big runs those first few days and started progressing northeast toward Gunnison and Hinsdale Counties,” said Gunnison County emergency services manager Lisa Bickford. “The fire boundary is at just over 31,000 acres. So it’s grown to be quite a big fire.”   

Bickford said they are also pre-planning for potential further evacuations and further progression of the Gold Mountain Fire. “It is likely to burn until there is a season-ending event, whether that’s monsoon moisture coming through or snowfall in the fall—especially as it progresses into those wilderness areas, they are not going to put firefighters out there,” she said.

The Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 3 is currently managing the fire and made contact with Gunnison County on June 30 in anticipation of it spreading to the northeast. “The fire was approaching pretty quickly to the Gunnison County line in that big Cimarron area,” said Bickford. “They had three plans of evacuation zones.” Bickford shared the Watch Duty map showing the preplanned evacuation zones in three tiers beginning with preparedness, graduating to voluntary evacuation and then to mandatory evacuation.

Two such zones are within Gunnison County and one (zone 32) had been evacuated as of July 7. Those areas include the Bear Claw, Silverjack and Eagles Rest subdivisions and a few other private properties. Adjacent zone 33 was in voluntary evacuation notice as of press time.

“We had made contact with people pretty early,” said Bickford of those in zone 32.  That area was set in voluntary evacuation status last Tuesday and is a relatively low-population zone, according to county authorities. “So by the time it changed to mandatory [the following Monday] they were pretty much out or at least ready to leave,” said Bickford.

She explained that the main trigger point for evacuating areas in Gunnison County was the fire making it to the east side of the Cimarron Ridge. “So it’s still a good ways out before making its way to private property…but now that it’s in the drainage, they are expecting that it could make some movement following the west fork of the Cimmaron drainage.”

Bickford noted the only containment lines are closer to the city of Ouray. “The area going toward Gunnison is still expected to grow,” she said. With gusting winds, lightning and storm activity with little precipitation in the forecast, structure protection has already started within the evacuation zones. Authorities have established a resource staging camp off Highway 50 toward Montrose, and shelters set up in Ridgway are available to Gunnison County evacuees.

Bickford said if the fire moves east of Silverjack, additional evacuations may take effect. The Gunnison County emergency operations call center lines are open to help people navigate their options. They can be reached at (970) 641-7660.

Bickford said the response has touched many agencies and organizations across the county and beyond. Her department has worked closely with the county communications staff to keep residents informed, with the sheriff’s office to coordinate patrols, with the CSU Extension Office to manage livestock needs in the evacuation area and they have been participating in daily incident management team meetings as well as coordinating with the three other counties impacted (Ouray, Montrose and Hinsdale). Gunnison County Public Works is contributing resources and personnel, public health is helping with air quality messaging and preparing for mass distribution of masks.

Information resources

An app called Watch Duty is not an official information source, but Bickford recommended it personally because it consolidates information from many resources and allows people to subscribe to incidents as well.

The official fire page is the InciWeb page, which can be found at https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/cogmf-gold-mountain-fire?

People can also opt-in to the county’s emergency alerts notification system at www.gunnisoncounty.org/List.aspx

“We highly recommend that, we are not character limited on those messages,” said Bickford.

Additional information can be found at emergency.gunnisoncounty.org/gold-mountain-fire.

Air quality

Assistant county manager for public health and human services Joni Reynolds said they have a large stock (thousands) of masks for distribution that people can also pick up at the HHS office in Gunnison.

“We have been in air quality index (AQI) in the unhealthy zone, particularly for individuals at risk due to pulmonary or cardiac conditions. And we have been above that in the unhealthy risk area for all individuals; so limiting outdoor exposure, particularly outdoor activity, is really important to monitor,” she said. 

Bickford said the Ferris Fire, which has burned more than 50,000 acres in Dolores County is contributing significantly to the air quality in the Gunnison Basin as well.

Reynolds said AQI has at times approached or exceeded 200, “but we have not seen the air quality that Montrose County has seen. Montrose County has seen air index quality in the 500s.” Reynolds said the county is not recommending any other measures at this time, but home air filters/purifiers can be helpful.