{"id":38996,"date":"2022-08-10T01:25:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T07:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lightning-strikes-trigger-small-fires-in-montezuma-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:47:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:47:53","slug":"lightning-strikes-trigger-small-fires-in-montezuma-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lightning-strikes-trigger-small-fires-in-montezuma-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning strikes trigger small fires in Montezuma County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jason
Jason Walters captured Tuesday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lightning storm in the sky above a cabin on his property on County Road H, south of the Montezuma County Fairgrounds. He photographed the lightning by using a long exposure of a couple of seconds,<\/span>Jason Walters\/Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Thunderstorms with heavy lightning triggered a handful of small wildfires in Montezuma County Tuesday afternoon, officials said.<\/p>\n

A single-tree fire in a canyon on Road 25.8 was extinguished by Dolores Volunteer Fire District, said Chief Mike Zion. Lewis-Arriola Volunteer Fire Department also responded.<\/p>\n

Cortez Fire Protecton District crews responded to single tree fires caused by lightning on County Roads 29, 25 and M, said Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

Crews also responded to small fires reported on Mancos Hill and near the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park.<\/p>\n

None of the fires reportedly got out of control, Nowlin said, and rain was falling around the county.<\/p>\n

A small fire was also reported southwest of Towaoc, according to National Interagency Fire Center.<\/p>\n

Zion said a lightning storm was reported up the Dolores Valley in the Stoner area, but no fires were found, and the area was receiving good rain.<\/p>\n

Smoke reports were also being investigated at Totten Lake and in the Black Mountain area, according to the Fire Center.<\/p>\n

Fire activity in the area has been low overall lately.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a fairly quiet year,\u201d Zion said.<\/p>\n

Cortez has a 30-40% chance of thunderstorms Wednesday and Thursday, and a 50% chance on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

districts respond to single-tree fires, sheriff says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996","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=38996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84194,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996\/revisions\/84194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38996"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}