{"id":16925,"date":"2025-08-13T20:38:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T20:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crews-keep-flames-from-roads-and-rico-as-stoner-mesa-fire-hits-7100-acres\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:02:09","slug":"crews-keep-flames-from-roads-and-rico-as-stoner-mesa-fire-hits-7100-acres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crews-keep-flames-from-roads-and-rico-as-stoner-mesa-fire-hits-7100-acres\/","title":{"rendered":"Crews keep flames from roads and Rico as Stoner Mesa Fire hits 7,100 acres"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vehicles
Vehicles outside of the Rico Fire Station on Aug. 12. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As the Stoner Mesa Fire reached 7,100 acres, firefighters continued working to keep flames from spilling over into Colorado Highway 145 to the south and County Road 38 to the west, with helicopter water bucket drops coming in handy, according to a news release from Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Crews carry on combating the fire as a transition from San Juan Team 8 to Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 1 is set for 7 p.m., but fire managers say that the switch won\u2019t disrupt any coordination that\u2019s already been in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ordering the next level of complex incident management teams to help us integrate and step up,\u201d said San Juan Team 8 Incident Commander Pat Seekins during a public meeting Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould be a very smooth transition with us and them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Seekins said that all information is passed over to the incoming team.<\/p>\n

With aid from helicopter water bucket drops, firefighter crews reported halting the fire\u2019s spread along the Stoner Mesa trail and the 535 Road Tuesday, while dozer lines are planned ahead to protect County Road 38.<\/p>\n

Plans are underway to get a dozer up on Stoner Mesa for planned lines east of the fire, moving from there in a southwest direction.<\/p>\n

San Juan Team 8 Operations Chief Brad Pietruszka said during yesterday\u2019s meeting that the fire\u2019s pace is likely to change atop the mesa, switching from mixed conifer to relatively young aspen trees, he said, which aren\u2019t burning at quite the same pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it\u2019s up top on Stoner Mesa, things get pretty different,\u201d Pietruszka said.<\/p>\n

To the fire\u2019s south, crews suppressed numerous spot fires between Taylor Mesa Road and Taylor Creek Road Tuesday as well.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, San Juan Hotshot crew members worked on fireline south near Priest Gulch Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Work moves forward on assessing plans for Rico, with plans underway to divert flames from the town in case the fire enters. Structure Group 145 moves along the stretch of highway in between Rico and Stoner to continue assessing properties at risk.<\/p>\n

\"Stoner
Stoner Mesa Fire map for Aug. 13 (Courtesy image\/San Juan National Forest)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Structure Group 38 have completed their assessments in the Dunton Ranch area and now plan to move further south on County Road 38 beginning with Johnny Bull Creek.<\/p>\n

By night, smoke is likely to settle into Highway 145, County Road 38, Dolores, Rico, Telluride, Silverton, Ouray and the San Luis Valley.<\/p>\n

As officials managing the fire made clear during a public meeting at Rico Fire Station on Tuesday, the Stoner Mesa Fire remains an ongoing threat. But those same local officials stayed firm on a measured, adaptive approach.<\/p>\n

They urged residents to stay alert and prepare for potential evacuation. Even under the shadow of a wildfire, Rico holds on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had some big fire days growth,\u201d said Seekins. \u201cIts gonna be challenging and its gonna be likely on the landscape for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we strive to do is be proactive, not reactive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Command of fire to be transferred to Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16926,"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-16925","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\/16925","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=16925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20468,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16925\/revisions\/20468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16925"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}