{"id":40987,"date":"2022-04-24T21:07:12","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T03:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/peak-colorado-wildfire-season-may-start-earlier-and-last-longer\/"},"modified":"2022-04-25T03:07:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T03:07:12","slug":"peak-colorado-wildfire-season-may-start-earlier-and-last-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/peak-colorado-wildfire-season-may-start-earlier-and-last-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Colorado wildfire season may start earlier and last longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Burro
Burro Fire Crews get a break during the Burro Fire north of Dolores in 2018.<\/span>Journal file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The extreme fire conditions gripping Colorado won\u2019t disappear over the next few months, according to an annual wildfire outlook released by state officials Friday.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control warns that high temperatures and dry weather will likely persist into the summer, priming forests and grasslands for blazes. Projections suggest the peak of the fire season will start in mid-May, weeks earlier than usual, with extreme drought conditions expected to last into July.<\/p>\n

Those conditions will leave every part of Colorado vulnerable to wildfires at some point during the next three months, but not all areas will face the same degree of danger at the same time.<\/p>\n

State fire officials expect southern Colorado to face the greatest risk in May, but conditions for large wildfires will then extend across the state. The monsoon could bring some relief to the Western Slope in July, but forecasters predict wildfire weather will persist in the Front Range and Eastern Plains later into the summer.<\/p>\n

At a news conference Friday, Mike Morgan, the director of the state fire agency, said the volatile factors will make it nearly impossible to set prescribed burns to reduce flammable fuels. With fewer opportunities for \u201cgood fires,\u201d Morgan said the state plans to smother blazes before they burn homes and ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur strategy for unwanted fire is fairly simple,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is early detection and aggressive initial attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Plateau Fire north of Dolores scorched more than 19,000 acres in 2018.<\/span>Journal file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The success of the strategy depends on an expanded fleet of firefighting aircraft. At an earlier press event, Gov. Jared Polis announced the state had secured a contract for a second large air tanker and two large, fast-flying Type 1 helicopters to assist with summer firefighting efforts.<\/p>\n

The additional aircraft means Colorado has 11 tankers, helicopters and airplanes available to detect and smother wildfires throughout the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason it\u2019s so critical to reserve these capabilities is we are competing with other states to extend these contracts,\u201d Polis said. \u201cWe want to make sure Colorado is ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcements came just after the National Weather Service dispatched a rare warning of \u201cextremely critical\u201d fire weather for eastern Colorado and New Mexico, leaving many residents scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke. Meteorologists noted such extreme conditions had only appeared in the region two or three times since 2006.<\/p>\n

The springtime wildfire warnings were also the latest reminder Colorado no longer has a defined summer fire season. In late December, the Marshall Fire became the most destructive fire in state history, burning more than 1,100 homes in Boulder County. In 2020, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires became the first and second-largest ever recorded by burning late into the fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Projections suggest peak of the fire season will start in mid-May<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40987","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=40987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40987"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}