{"id":45662,"date":"2021-07-21T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T04:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-national-forest-drops-fire-restrictions\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:26:28","slug":"san-juan-national-forest-drops-fire-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-national-forest-drops-fire-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan National Forest drops fire restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ponderosa
Ponderosa pine are overstocked in the San Juan National Forest and lack age diversity. A timber harvest program is planned to thin out forests to reduce potential for large wildfires, and improve forest resiliency to drought and insect infestation. (Courtesy San Juan National Forest)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Land managers for the San Juan National Forest will drop fire restrictions Thursday after a steady monsoon decreased fire danger in the area.<\/p>\n

Starting Thursday, campfires will be allowed outside of established campgrounds and recreation sites. The national forest asked the public to be careful with fire and obey any localized fire restrictions, such as the campfire ban for Chicago Basin in the Weminuche Wilderness Area, according to a San Juan National Forest news release Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate the public\u2019s cooperation during Stage 1 restrictions and would like to remind everyone that the rain has not reached all parts of SW Colorado equally,\u201d Kara Chadwick, forest supervisor, said in the release.<\/p>\n

The national forest implemented Stage 1 fire restrictions in mid-June as Southwest Colorado experienced dry weather conditions and exceptional drought. When regular afternoon showers began in late June, the precipitation lessened but did not eliminate danger from fire.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s monsoon has been stronger in La Plata County than in Montezuma County.<\/a> However, fire danger remains high in the southern most parts of both counties.<\/p>\n

The counties remain in extreme drought, with the southwestern part of Montezuma County in exceptional drought, the most serious of five drought categories used by the U.S. Drought Monitor.<\/a><\/p>\n

New lightning-caused fires are being reported daily, even in higher elevations where more rain has fallen, the news release said.<\/p>\n

\u201c It is also possible that the San Juan National Forest may return to restrictions if conditions dry out later in the summer and fall,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n

La Plata County and Southern Ute Indian Tribe Stage 1 fire restrictions remained in effect Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Southern Ute restrictions<\/a> prohibit open burning, agricultural burning, fireworks and campfires outside of designated, developed campsites.<\/p>\n

La Plata County\u2019s restrictions<\/a> limit smoking, welding and flaring for oil and gas production. They also prohibit open burning, fireworks, use of internal combustion engines and floating sky lanterns, all with some exceptions.<\/p>\n

The county was in the process of evaluating its fire restrictions Wednesday, said Ted Holteen, county spokesman.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Forest Service encouraged visitors to practice principles of outdoor fire safety, including:<\/p>\n

Clear all flammable material within 3 feet of campfire rings.Make a fire only if you have a shovel and sufficient water to put it out.Never leave a fire unattended.Keep fires small and manageable.Extinguish fires completely. If it\u2019s too hot to touch, it\u2019s too hot to leave. Every campfire should be put \u201cdead out\u201d before leaving it.<\/div>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Service says danger still present, urges caution<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[350,28,1623,199,549,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-rain","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-united-states-forest-service","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662","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=45662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86587,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662\/revisions\/86587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45662"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}