Forest Service creates 400-acre containment zone for small fire near Pagosa Springs – The Durango Herald

Firefighters use lightning-caused fires to reduce fuel consumption

The Snow Ranch Fire burning 11 miles west of Pagosa Springs in the Chris Mountain area of ​​the San Juan National Forest, which grew between 2 and 3 acres during the first two days, expanded to 45 acres and was zero percent contained as of Thursday afternoon. .

The lightning-caused fire was discovered Tuesday morning and started about a mile from a transmission line that supplies electricity to all of Archuleta County, said Andy Lyon, a spokesman for the San National Forest. Juan.

“If the fire were to put this out, a lot of people would be in the dark here in Pagosa,” Lyon said.

The Forest Service has mapped out a 400-acre containment zone in which it will allow the fire to grow.

The Forest Service began bulldozing around the perimeter of the containment zone on Wednesday and began isolating – burning a line of control – around the perimeter on Thursday. Both tactics starve the fire of fuel and stop the fire from spreading if it approaches containment lines.

Blacklining generates smoke, which Lyon said is combined with the smoke already rising from the 45-acre fire. A plume was visible from US Highway 160 as well as from Pagosa Springs, Bayfield and even south Durango in clear conditions.

Lyon said the Forest Service allows small fires caused by lighting to spread in order to manage forest health and prevent catastrophic wildfires in the future.

Periodic small fires, often started by lightning strikes, are necessary in many forest ecosystems to eliminate the overabundance of undergrowth that fuels larger, catastrophic fires, Lyon said.

However, for almost a century, mainstream ecology ignored this principle. Instead, the Forest Service relied on the idea that each fire should be contained and extinguished to as small an area as possible and as quickly as possible.

“There would be a flash of lightning, we would go and put it out,” Lyon said. “All the dead trees, all the pine cones, all the leaves, all the needles just kept piling up.”

This led to an overabundance of undergrowth. Meanwhile, the western United States has become hotter and drier, contributing to the increasing frequency of massive wildfires that have dominated headlines in recent decades.

Since about 1990, the Forest Service has adopted a “let it burn” policy against natural wildfires in appropriate situations.

The 400-acre containment zone around the Snow Ranch Fire is an example of the let-burn policy. The Forest Service is confident in allowing the fire to grow because the area was logged about a decade ago, meaning fuels are relatively scarce.

“We're going to have lightning, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year,” Lyon said. “And on a hot, windy day in August, if a fire comes out of the forest and reaches those 400 acres, it won't have as much to burn.”

Lyon said controlled burning efforts should be completed Thursday, wind permitting. After that, the hundred firefighters present on site will undertake to maintain the perimeter of the containment zone.

Jeff Colton, a National Weather Service meteorologist sent to help the Forest Service with the Snow Ranch fire, said conditions in the area over the past two days have been hot and dry. Showers and thunderstorms are expected to arrive Friday from Arizona and settle into southwest Colorado, which will help suppress the fire but also increase the risk of wind gusts up to 50 mph.

“It depends on where the winds materialize,” Colton said. “But this area is quite isolated.”

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