{"id":23651,"date":"2025-02-06T18:09:40","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T01:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-provides-tips-for-safe-agricultural-burning\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:40:10","slug":"montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-provides-tips-for-safe-agricultural-burning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-provides-tips-for-safe-agricultural-burning\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office provides tips for \u2018safe agricultural burning\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Neighbors
Neighbors Dennis and Kim and Giesler shovel dirt from a fence row onto smoldering brush after a fire ignited near South Forty Golf Course on County Road H in this archived photo. (Journal file photo)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office gave tips to ensure \u201csafe agricultural burning\u201d after an increase in \u201chuman-caused\u201d fires in Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata and Archuleta counties in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

The news release from the Sheriff\u2019s Office was provided by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control.<\/p>\n

Many of these burns, according to the release, were a result of \u201cescaped agricultural burns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile no red flag warnings have been issued, fuels in the lower elevations of Southwest Colorado are abnormally dry and receptive to burning, especially in windy conditions,\u201d DFPC said. \u201cPlease exercise caution when burning ditches or fields, and do your homework before you start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tips for safe agricultural burning were also provided. The first step included evaluating the conditions. If the wind is blowing and the condition are dry, it isn\u2019t safe to burn. They suggest burning on low-wind days and in the morning, as humidity is higher in the morning than in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

They also advised those planning on burning should have helpers and make time to inform their neighbors and 911 dispatch about the planned burn. Burn into the wind to prevent rapid spread and keep debris piles small rather than burning everything all at once. Burn barrels should also e covered with a weighted metal cover with holes no larger than 3\/4 inch.<\/p>\n

Fire should never be left unattended, and someone should stay with the fire until the flames have completely been dissipated.<\/p>\n

Lastly, a water source and adequate tools or equipment should be on hand to extinguish the fire, in case of unplanned spread. If the burn gets out of hand, call 911 immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reportedly been an increase in \u2018human-caused\u2019 fires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,21,44,837,80,350,28,83,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-county","tag-dove-creek","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23651","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=23651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78214,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23651\/revisions\/78214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23651"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}