The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
No fire restrictions, but people are urged to be careful
As wildfire rips through more than 350,000 acres in California, wildland fire crews in Gunnison County are preparing for a fire season of their own. Firefighters have responded to at least four lightning initiated wildfires already this year, all of which were contained to less than one acre, according to Gunnison County fire marshal Dennis Spritzer.
The county’s last major wildfire, the Wiley Fire, was in 2002. Currently, area forests and rangelands have more fuel on the ground that could sustain a fire than at any time since that year.
“[The fuel load] has been building for a long time, but it depends on what the weather does. If the monsoonal weather that is forecast for July comes and hangs over the mountains, that will be a big help,” says Spritzer. “But if the heavy monsoon rains stay west, then things will dry out a lot faster.”
According to Jeremy Spetter, a fuels forester for the U.S. Forest Service, the moisture in light fuels, such as sage brush, is pretty high and there is less of a concern about fires in those areas. But as a result of the increased moisture, fine fuels, like grasses, are thriving and when “it does get warmer, those fine fuels will cure out and we’ll have a greater potential for fire in those areas,” Spetter says.
The National Weather Service issued a Red Flag warning for the Lower Gunnison Valley and areas to the west on Monday, June 30, meaning that critical fire weather conditions are occurring in the area, or will be occurring soon, due to a combination of dry lightning, erratic gusty winds and warm temperatures that will create explosive fire growth potential, according to the National Weather Service.
By Tuesday, July 1, the National Weather Service had changed the warning from Red Flag to a Hazardous Weather Outlook, which made no mention of fire danger.
“Right now I think the north end of the valley is looking pretty good, better than the area around Monarch Pass and the south end of valley. And that’s not to say it won’t change, since it doesn’t take long for that [fuel] to dry out on the 80 degree days we’ve been getting,” says Spritzer.
There are currently no fire restrictions for Gunnison County, but Spritzer says the fire danger is still high and people should not expect the rating to drop to moderate. There is even a chance that the danger level could be raised to extreme, depending on the weather.
“I just want people to be careful always, but around the Fourth of July especially. Campfires should be extinguished completely before people leave them alone,” he says, adding that class C fireworks, or those readily available to the public, are prohibited from the National Forests and any firework that “goes off the ground and explodes is illegal.”
And with the growing fuel load and warm weather, fire officials encourage homeowners in wooded areas to prepare for the possibility of a fire. Part of that preparation involves making alterations to the land between a house or outbuildings and the potential fuels that surround them, known as the wildland-urban interface.
According to Dave Casey, a forester with the Colorado State Forest Service, creating a defensible space around a house can save that structure from a wildland fire—and he is just the guy to help homeowners make that space.
“Anyone can get hold of me and we can write them a plan detailing how big the defensible space should be according to fuel type that is in the area and slope of land,” he says, adding that there are limited funds available to property owners through grants, on a first-come, first-served basis.
“Acceptance [of the wildfire danger] is about half and half. Most people are aware that this is a fire-dependant ecosystem and fire’s a part of it, and if you’re living in it, then you’re in danger,” says Casey.
One of the greatest threats, he says, is a poorly managed forest where fire has been taken out of the natural cycle, which leads to the low-intensity ground fires being replaced by high-intensity crown fires, leading to more destruction.
“Mitigation is a two-part battle that can keep yourself safe and allows enough time in a wildfire situation to allow firefighters to protect the structure. and it also goes along with preventing the spread of insects and disease,” says Casey, saying the presence of dead trees will increase the potential for a fire and its intensity.
Recommendations for improving a property’s fire resistance can be found on the Colorado State Forest Service website, csfs.colostate.edu, or at firewise.org. People in Gunnison, Hinsdale and northern Sawatch counties can call Dave Casey at (970) 641-6852.
