{"id":130022,"date":"2026-05-20T17:32:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/prescribed-burn-carried-out-12-miles-north-of-dolores\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T17:32:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:32:31","slug":"prescribed-burn-carried-out-12-miles-north-of-dolores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/prescribed-burn-carried-out-12-miles-north-of-dolores\/","title":{"rendered":"Prescribed burn carried out 12 miles north of Dolores"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=edfcbd44-d0e3-560b-ace0-73f49cb012cd&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=edfcbd44-d0e3-560b-ace0-73f49cb012cd&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=edfcbd44-d0e3-560b-ace0-73f49cb012cd&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=edfcbd44-d0e3-560b-ace0-73f49cb012cd&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Crews light a perimeter around an area for a prescribed burn in April with the Dolores Ranger District at the Boggy Draw Trail System. A prescribed burn in the Salter-Carlyle area 12 miles north of Dolores began Wednesday. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Crews light a perimeter around an area for a prescribed burn in April with the Dolores Ranger District at the Boggy Draw Trail System. A prescribed burn in the Salter-Carlyle area 12 miles north of Dolores began Wednesday. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>DOLORES \u2014 Smoke may be visible across much of Southwest Colorado Wedneday night through Thursday as fire crews conduct a prescribed burn north of Dry Canyon near Dolores on roughly 1,660 acres to improve forest health within the San Juan National Forest.<\/p>\n<p>The burn continues mitigation work from the Dolores Ranger District to remove wildfire fuels and lessen the chance of a major, unplanned fire in the future. The burn plan called for 68 personnel assigned to the field with aerial and drip-torch hand ignitions.<\/p>\n<p>Abraham Proffitt, a spokesperson for the Forest Service, said a test fire early Wednesday assessed soil conditions and wind activity, and the landscape was deemed successfully safe to continue. The area received a quarter-inch of rain Monday, making it ideal for burning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt 1 p.m., it was 20% of the interior had been burned, I\u2019d say it\u2019s probably around 30 to 40% burned at this point,\u201d Proffitt said, adding the goal is to wrap up by the end of day.<\/p>\n<p>He said crews thinned vegetation and brush ahead of time to prep for burning. Officials closely monitored soil moisture levels the night prior and week before burning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was low-wind activity, and the landscape itself is a good mix of Ponderosa pine and grasses so that landscape is primed for prescribed fire, because it will burn at a lower intensity,\u201d Proffitt said.<\/p>\n<p><\/p><div class=\"naviga-social-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsanjuannationalforest%2Fposts%2Fpfbid02kcy1Q4z8gKmM7KkdsMYY15H7EfQzUPr5BTxPemy9HkprTM2MTFQr2vGSZ3CEfXVDl&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"726\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p>Fire officials follow strict burn guidelines where they can only continue under certain weather, fuel and smoke parameters.<\/p>\n<p>The burn is focused on the Salter-Carlyle area, 12 miles north of Dolores, near Forest Service Road 510.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2600847a-718d-5bb7-b54f-9b1abf11bee0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2600847a-718d-5bb7-b54f-9b1abf11bee0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2600847a-718d-5bb7-b54f-9b1abf11bee0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2600847a-718d-5bb7-b54f-9b1abf11bee0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"1104\" height=\"1426\" alt=\"A roughly 1,660 acres north of Dry Canyon on the Dolores Ranger District is planned for the prescribed burn. Fire crews treated wilderness in a 1,300-acre prescribed burn south of Dry Canyon in 2024, shown in the pictured map. (Courtesy of the San Juan National Forest Service)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A roughly 1,660 acres north of Dry Canyon on the Dolores Ranger District is planned for the prescribed burn. Fire crews treated wilderness in a 1,300-acre prescribed burn south of Dry Canyon in 2024, shown in the pictured map. (Courtesy of the San Juan National Forest Service)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>In part, the strategy is to restore Ponderosa pine ecosystems while improving wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n<p>According to San Juan National Forest, smoke is expected to travel northeast through Wednesday and Thursday and settle around McPhee Reservoir and around the towns of Dolores, Rico, Cortez, Dove Creek, and Pleasant View before disappearing Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTypically in the evenings, it settles in the canyon, traveling into Dolores and settling into the McPhee and surrounding communities, just depending on how the wind travels,\u201d Proffitt said.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-4e4cda925cf425b59d2ef2dec6574dc7\"><a href=\"mailto:awatson@the-journal.com\">awatson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-social-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsanjuannationalforest%2Fposts%2Fpfbid02kcy1Q4z8gKmM7KkdsMYY15H7EfQzUPr5BTxPemy9HkprTM2MTFQr2vGSZ3CEfXVDl&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"726\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>for 1,660 acres calls for aerial ignitions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[28,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-130022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130022"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=130022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}