{"id":16149,"date":"2025-10-13T20:02:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stoner-mesa-fire-region-reopens-for-rifle-hunting-seasons\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:55:06","slug":"stoner-mesa-fire-region-reopens-for-rifle-hunting-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stoner-mesa-fire-region-reopens-for-rifle-hunting-seasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Stoner Mesa Fire region reopens for rifle hunting seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A misty morning in early September on County Road 38 near the Stoner Mesa Fire. (Stoner Mesa Fire Information Facebook page)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Rifle hunting seasons will resume this month on public lands previously closed by the Stoner Mesa Fire east of Rico in the San Juan National Forest.<\/p>\n

Access to Taylor Mesa reopened Oct. 8, while Stoner Mesa roads and trail systems reopened Oct. 10, according to the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n

The reopening applies to Game Management Unit 71, an area within Montezuma and Dolores counties with elk and deer<\/a> seasons.<\/p>\n

Archery, muzzleloader and rifle bear seasons have ended, but first through fourth rifle seasons begin Wednesday and run through Nov. 23, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really appreciate the hunting community that respected these critical closures and allowed fire crews to safely work in the area,\u201d CPW District Wildlife Manager Matt Sturdevant said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The lightning-caused Stoner Mesa Fire was first reported on July 28 before reaching 10,249 acres in late August. The fire threatened the town of Rico<\/a> before the work of hundreds of firefighters and monsoonal rains suppressed<\/a> it.<\/p>\n

As of Sept. 30, the fire was 95% contained, according to <\/a>the Stoner Mesa Fire Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Land repair work continues. CPW warns that heavy equipment may disrupt hunting and that burn areas are prone to flooding after rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

utilizing heavy equipment continue suppression repair efforts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16149","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=16149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20043,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16149\/revisions\/20043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16149"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}