{"id":13650,"date":"2026-02-05T12:56:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T19:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pile-burn-planned-in-mesa-verde-national-park\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:38:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:38:49","slug":"pile-burn-planned-in-mesa-verde-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pile-burn-planned-in-mesa-verde-national-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Pile burn planned in Mesa Verde National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ca3a8e5f-cb31-5add-a17b-f18200636ff6&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Mesa Verde\u2019s main road remains open and free of charge Thursday despite closures. Thousands of National Park Service employees were furloughed after the government shut down in the middle of the night Tuesday. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Mesa Verde\u2019s main road remains open and free of charge Thursday despite closures. Thousands of National Park Service employees were furloughed after the government shut down in the middle of the night Tuesday. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Anna Watson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Fire managers plan to conduct a pile burn in Mesa Verde National Park in February or March, taking advantage of favorable weather conditions, according to a news release from Mesa Verde National Park.<\/p>\n<p>The operation will involve burning one large slash pile, about 0.25 acres in size, next to the park\u2019s four\u2011way stop near the headquarters loop. The pile consists of vegetation removed during recent projects to remove hazardous fuels, along with routine park maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>Pile burning will occur only when conditions allow. The timing depends on the project area receiving adequate snowfall before ignition and favorable winds to disperse smoke, the park said. Firefighters will remain on scene throughout the operation.<\/p>\n<p>Smoke will likely impact nearby communities including Mancos, Cortez and Towaoc, though impacts are expected to be minimal. Smoke may or may not be visible. Smoke and flames could be visible from the main park road during the burn and for one to two days afterward. Cooler evening temperatures may cause smoke to linger in low\u2011lying areas.<\/p>\n<p>More information on the health effects of wildland fire smoke is available on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment <a href=\"www.cdphe.colorado.gov\/wood-smoke-and-your-health\" id=\"link-f87e655356a6b8da64e05c57b5603470\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a> at www.cdphe.colorado.gov\/wood\u2011smoke-and-your-health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Firefighters will remain on scene during the operation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,350,28,83,173,60,29,144],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mesa-verde-national-park","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-towaoc"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650","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=13650"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19087,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13650\/revisions\/19087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13650"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}