Climate Change, Unhealthy Forests Fueling Wildfire Threat in Colorado

Colorado is covered with the scars of countless wildfires.

Some of them are just starting to heal, like the charred trees and ashy remains of homes burned by the Alexander Mountain fire that sparked west of Fort Collins this summer.

Other scars are less visible but still keenly felt, like the 1994 South Canyon fire that remains the state’s deadliest wildfire on record.

State and local fire officials say disasters like the South Canyon fire, which killed 14 firefighters on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, led to widespread changes to make the field safer.

But now they’re contending with a changing reality: Though less deadly today, Colorado wildfires are becoming more extreme, and fire officials must seek new and better ways to prevent and fight them.

The difference between Colorado wildfires today compared to 30 years ago is “almost mind-boggling,” said Vaughn Jones, wildland fire management section chief for the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.

“We’re evacuating entire towns now, we’re closing down interstates, we’re disrupting interstate commerce. It’s still a natural resource problem but it’s gone way beyond that to a public safety problem that affects all Coloradans, affects economies and ways of life,” Jones said.

Colorado wildfires, then and now

Colorado wildfires that grew to a few thousand acres used to be considered a big deal, according to Jones.

When the South Canyon fire started burning near Glenwood Springs on July 2, 1994, fire officials initially believed the slow-burning, lightning-sparked blaze wouldn’t cause many problems.

That belief would prove to be catastrophic when the wildfire erupted on July 6, 1994, exploding into flames reaching more than 100 feet in the air and trapping and killing 14 firefighters as they tried to escape.

South Canyon remains Colorado’s deadliest wildfire on record and cast a spotlight on wildland firefighting across the United States. Investigators found that a lack of leadership and communication, combined with shifting weather and extreme fire behavior, contributed to the deaths of the Storm King 14.

At just over 2,000 acres in size, the South Canyon fire stands in stark comparison to Colorado’s more recent and vastly larger wildfires.

The 2020 East Troublesome fire raced across more than 100,000 acres of mountain terrain in a matter of hours, destroying more than 500 homes and buildings and killing two people.

That fire sparked in October, compared to the South Canyon’s peak-of-summer start in July, and was started by a person – which is the case for most wildfires in the United States.

Both fires burned for several days before they exploded into fire storms, driven by strong winds and fueled by drought-stricken forests.

But while the physical footprint of the South Canyon fire remained within a few square miles, the East Troublesome fire burned across more than 300 square miles, jumping the Continental Divide despite scarce fire fuel at high elevations.

“The impacts of the fires and the fire behavior that we’re seeing has just changed drastically over the past couple decades,” said Jones, who has worked in Colorado fire prevention for 26 years. “Whether you want to call it global warming, climate change or extended drought, there’s no doubt based on the data that the size, intensity and complexity are getting bigger.”

Climate change, growing population fuel Colorado wildfire risk

The 20 largest wildfires in Colorado’s history have all sparked in the past 22 years, burning nearly 1.5 million acres or more than 2,300 square miles – the equivalent of burning Rocky Mountain National Park roughly six times over.

Adapting to more extreme wildfires is a complex problem without a simple solution, said Daniel Beveridge, a fire, fuels and watershed manager for the Colorado State Forest Service.

Beveridge attributes the worsening wildfires to climate change and unhealthy forests caused in part by fire exclusion, the practice of preventing fire from burning in certain areas, regardless of what started the fire.

“A lot of our forests are relatively unhealthy, and until such time we can get those forest ecosystems back into a more natural state, we will continue to experience these kinds of issues,” he said.

Fire risk is also growing because more people are moving into areas with little distinction between forests and neighborhoods, according to state and local fire officials.

In Douglas County, roughly two-thirds of the population lives in the so-called wildland-urban interface, with more moving in, Sheriff Darren Weekly said.

“They’re at extreme risk for fire,” he said. “Obviously we saw what happened with the Marshall fire and how these fires can spread, and once they hit a suburban neighborhood they just take off from there.”

When fires start in populated areas like Douglas County – areas that fire officials say have “a lot of values at risk” – firefighters prioritize protecting people and property first and foremost.

“We throw as many resources as we can at the wildfires and get them knocked down as quickly as possible,” Weekly said.

But there’s tension between the impact of too much suppression and the cost of letting fires burn, according to state fire officials like Jones and Beveridge.

Fire is a necessary part of the life cycle of some ecosystems but also comes at a cost, Jones said.

“The longer duration of a fire, the more it’s going to cost, more you’re going to lose homes and infrastructure, so that’s why we want to get it early,” Jones said. “In those cases, there’s just not a whole lot of room for letting fire play its natural role.”

For Beveridge, it’s key for state leaders to recognize that fire does and will continue to be a part of life in Colorado.

“We cannot eliminate fire from the landscape in Colorado, so learning to live with fires is critically important,” he said.

Fire officials seek solutions to growing wildfire risk

Just as more extreme wildfires present new problems, they also require state and local officials to find new solutions.

State officials have worked to bulk up Colorado’s firefighting resources so Colorado doesn’t have to rely on federal assistance to battle wildfires, Jones said.

“One thing we’ve done is really try to take our fate into our own hands,” he said. “We at the state have worked pretty hard to where we have our own resources, particularly aviation, that are under our operational control and that we know are going to be here.”

Over the past five years, Colorado purchased its own Firehawk helicopter and contracted a large air tanker, adding to its arsenal of two multi-mission aircraft that detect and map fires along with two contracted helicopters and two contracted tankers.

The state has already ordered a second Firehawk and purchased two more helicopters that will be available year-round starting in 2025, according to the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.

Detecting and mapping fires by airplane “wasn’t really part of the equation” for firefighters in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Jones said. It’s now a vital source of information to everyone from the firefighters on the ground to the folks in charge.

Colorado firefighting aircraft were key during a string of wildfires that sparked on the Front Range this summer when most federal resources and crews were busy fighting fires elsewhere, Jones said.

“It was an important part of getting those fires under control as fast as they were,” he said.

More state resources are also a boon to rural communities like Moffat County, where state firefighting planes can detect wildfires in remote areas before humans through infrared sensors.

“That’s one of the biggest benefits for us in northwest Colorado, because most fires are lightning-strike fires,” said Moffat County Sheriff KC Hume.

“If we can get on fires and get resources to fire earlier it increases our odds dramatically of keeping fires small.”

Hume is less worried about the impact of wildfires on Moffat County residents, where roughly 13,000 people live in a county that’s 4,743 square miles, than fire officials in denser Front Range communities like Douglas County.

Both Hume and Weekly have cross-trained deputies to work as firefighters, but Douglas County also pays $1.5 million a year to contract its own firefighting helicopter, which can respond to fires elsewhere in the state.

“That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of property damage that could result when a wildland fire hits a suburban neighborhood,” Weekly said.

Other changes to wildland firefighting in the face of more extreme fires – and in the wake of the South Canyon fire – are less tangible but still important, according to Jones.

In the days and hours before the tragedy on Storm King Mountain, firefighters raised concerns about the fire strategy but continued to follow the plans laid out by the incident commander, according to later investigations.

Firefighters did not receive up-to-date information about weather conditions and were never told about the incoming cold front that quickly stirred up 45-mph winds that caused the blow-up.

Now, there’s an “increased willingness” for firefighters to speak up, Jones said.

“Looking at an assignment, if you don’t feel comfortable you can turn that down,” he said.

Better communication among today’s firefighters and incident commanders – and the public – was evident this summer amid a streak of wildfires from Larimer to Jefferson counties.

Fire officials shared photos of daily briefings, where dozens gathered every morning to hear updated fire conditions and weather forecasts, and agencies regularly held news conferences and published updates about weather and fire conditions.

But there’s one piece of the puzzle of combating and preventing extreme wildfires in Colorado that can’t be obtained solely through money or studying the past. It’s more time, Jones said.

“We always say it’s taken us decades to get to where we are at and it’s going to take us decades – with substantial investment – to get out of it,” he said.

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