{"id":52690,"date":"2020-07-16T19:34:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T01:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brush-fire-south-of-cortez-contained\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:01:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:01:06","slug":"brush-fire-south-of-cortez-contained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brush-fire-south-of-cortez-contained\/","title":{"rendered":"Brush fire south of Cortez contained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:d150078e-a26a-4d49-91fc-275045d5039e --><\/p>\n<p>A fast-moving brush fire southwest of Cortez was being fought Thursday by multiple local and federal firefighting agencies.<\/p>\n<p>The fire grew to 22 acres, and was fully contained by about 3 p.m., said Cortez Fire Protection District Chief Jay Balfour.<\/p>\n<p>It started on County Road G.2 and was sparked by a lawnmower being used by a resident to mow weeds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were trying to control the fire danger by mowing, and this happened,\u201d said Carol Gray. \u201cWe feel terrible about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said her son was operating a riding lawnmower when suddenly the mower was surrounded by flames. He jumped off, and emergency responders were called.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took off very, very fast,\u201d Gray said. \u201cIt is a lesson for everyone how dry it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her son dumped five-gallon buckets of water on the flames, but the fire had grown too large.<\/p>\n<p>The fire was reported about 11 a.m., and by 12:30 p.m. had grown to 10 acres, said BLM Fire Operations Manager Pat Seekins.<\/p>\n<p>Hand crews dug fireline, and multiple tankers and engines were on scene spraying water.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=694ab38f-a0ae-45da-8c88-57774eade8d8&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" alt=\"Firefighters move toward a brush fire southwest of Cortez.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Firefighters move toward a brush fire southwest of Cortez.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Two helicopters and a single engine air tanker were called in to drop fire retardant and water on the fire. Ground crews were deployed to establish a firebreak around the perimeter.<\/p>\n<p>The fire was burning northeast in sage brush, dry grass and some pi\u00f1on-juniper. It approached Bureau of Land Management land, but stayed on private land.<\/p>\n<p>Several homes are in the area, but no structures were damaged, officials said. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n<p>Fire departments from Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, Lewis-Arriola, Pleasant View, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Ute Mountain Helitack, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service responded to the fire. A Southwest Health System ambulance and Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies also were at the scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Multiple agencies and air support responded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52690","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=52690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88128,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52690\/revisions\/88128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52690"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}