{"id":16156,"date":"2025-08-14T00:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T06:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-a-fire-just-over-the-mountains-officials-hold-meeting-in-rico\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:55:07","slug":"with-a-fire-just-over-the-mountains-officials-hold-meeting-in-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-a-fire-just-over-the-mountains-officials-hold-meeting-in-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"With a fire just over the mountains, officials hold meeting in Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San
San Juan Team 8 Operations Chief Brad Pietruszka describes the dynamics of the Stoner Mesa Fire to attendees in the Rico Fire Station on Aug. 12 (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Several dozen people packed into the Rico Fire Station Tuesday evening for a meeting with officials handling the Stoner Mesa Fire, in turn bracing for the chance of an evacuation and witnessing the confidence of those managing the flames behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

As the potent odor of wildfire smoke lingered in the air and the hazy last light of day glared into the crowded fire station, officials \u2013 from law enforcement officers to incident commanders \u2013 spoke about the fire\u2019s activity, the teams managing the flames and the real, yet uncertain, possibility of evacuation.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday, the lightning strike-caused fire, first reported on July 28, had grown to more that 6,600 acres and put the small mountain town of Rico, home to about 300 people, on \u201cReady\u201d to evacuate status.<\/p>\n

The fire has repeatedly been noted by officials for its \u201cextreme\u201d behavior, frequently roaring too aggressively to even get boots on the ground.<\/p>\n

In recent days, the wind slowed down and the fire burned more moderately in aspen atop Stoner Mesa, as opposed to the highly combustible mixed conifer, a greater window of opportunities have been made to tackle the flames, officials said. A closer attack from crews on the ground, aerial bucket drops and fire lines have all come in handy.<\/p>\n

Some days might allow an aggressive approach to curbing the flames, said San Juan Team 8 Incident Cmdr. Pat Seekins.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther days we\u2019re going to have to back off and reassess and kind of reevaluate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Attendees
Attendees gather outside of the Rico Fire Station after a public meeting is held concerning the nearby Stoner Mesa Fire on Aug. 12 (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u2018A pretty rough deck of cards\u2019<\/div>\n

While instilling a steady confidence in their grasp of the blaze, officials did not downplay the fire\u2019s severity, reminding those present that the threat remains very real.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs everyone\u2019s explained, we\u2019ve been handed a pretty rough deck of cards when it comes to this fire,\u201d said Nick Musto, ranger for the Dolores Ranger District of the San Juan National Forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had a lot of people with decades of experience go out and look out at that ground, come back to me and tell me, \u2018You got a rough country out there.\u2019 And this is folks that aren\u2019t surprised by seeing rough country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\u201cHopefully this fire will stay where it\u2019s at and kick itself in the ass,\u201d said Dolores County Sheriff Don Wilson.<\/p>\n

Hopefully.<\/p>\n

Officials also said that while they very much hoped an evacuation wouldn\u2019t be needed, everyone who may need to flee if the time comes should have a plan in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe No. 1 thing is don\u2019t panic,\u201d said Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re all going to be OK. I\u2019m telling you that because I\u2019m gonna be there with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A structure sits just down the street from the Rico Fire station. Over the mountains the Stoner Mesa Fire looms at about 6,600 acres, threatening Rico residents with the possibility of an evacuation. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u2018There isn\u2019t a person in this community who wouldn\u2019t go to the help of a neighbor\u2019<\/div>\n

As the meeting wrapped up, community members stayed to talk more with fire officials, digesting what they\u2019d learned during the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the meeting tonight is timely. I think that people have been watching the smoke and trying to understand that behavior,\u201d Rico Town Planner Jen Stark said, referring to the behavior of the flames over the mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final step is really on the community members,\u201d Stark said.<\/p>\n

If they\u2019re told its time to evacuate, then Rico residents should be truly ready, she said.<\/p>\n

Skip Zeller, who said he\u2019d lived in Rico since 1983, expressed confidence in those managing the fire and added that the town community was strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis community, ever since I\u2019ve lived here, yeah, we have our differences over politics,\u201d Zeller said.<\/p>\n

But the fire fostered something else between neighbors, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to this, there isn\u2019t a person in this community who wouldn\u2019t go to the help of a neighbor. They\u2019re here tonight. They showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without downplaying the fire, officials display their confidence in managing the flames <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16157,"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-16156","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\/16156","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=16156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20764,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16156\/revisions\/20764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16156"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}