{"id":53199,"date":"2020-06-20T21:44:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-21T03:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-agencies-increase-response-to-small-fire-north-of-pagosa\/"},"modified":"2020-06-21T03:44:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T03:44:57","slug":"fire-agencies-increase-response-to-small-fire-north-of-pagosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-agencies-increase-response-to-small-fire-north-of-pagosa\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire agencies increase response to small fire north of Pagosa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The East Canyon Fire burns Sunday in west La Plata County.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While fire crews work to contain three wildfires in Southwest Colorado, one small fire, north of Pagosa Springs, has grown more complex.<\/p>\n

The Sand Creek Fire, in a remote area on the Pagosa Ranger District, has grown to 25 acres, a significant growth from Friday when it covered 12 acres, said Esther Godson, San Juan National Forest spokesperson. Because of standing dead trees and heavy downed tree hazards, responding to the fire is difficult and dangerous for fire crews. In response, the U.S. Forest Service will increase its response to the fire Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in such a remote and difficult to access area. That means it\u2019s going to become a longer-duration fire,\u201d Godson said. \u201cGiven the safety hazards and the limited access available, we\u2019re bringing in a Type 3 incident management team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The local San Juan National Forest Type 3 Incident Management Team will assume command. Type 3 IMTs are deployed when more personnel are required to respond as a fire grows larger, when more resources are required and\/or as the response to the fire grows more complex, for example when multiple agencies are involved.<\/p>\n

The Sand Creek Fire was started by a lightning storm last weekend. It is burning in the 2012 Little Sand Fire scar and located 5 air miles north of the Piedra River and 2.5 miles south of Mosca Road.<\/p>\n

Red Flag conditions, including wind and hot weather, contributed to the fire\u2019s growth. Helicopters have been providing water bucket drops on the incident daily. Smoke is visible from Piedra Road, Williams Reservoir and U.S. Highway 160 between Bayfield and Pagosa looking north.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service also received smoke reports from community members Saturday and deployed firefighters to see if those are actual fires or smoke from existing fires, Godson said.<\/p>\n

Fire restrictions are still in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extreme fire danger this weekend. It\u2019s a really good thing we\u2019re getting reports of smoke from community members. That means we can get to the fire fast,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

East Canyon Fire<\/div>\n

Fire crews held steady in their effort to contain the East Canyon Fire near Mancos from Friday to Saturday morning. As of 8 a.m., the fire covered 2,900 acres with 21% containment. A total of 402 fire personnel were working the East Canyon Fire, which broke out Sunday on the La Plata-Montezuma County line as a result of a lightning strike from a lightning storm that passed through the region June 13.<\/p>\n

Six Shooter Fire<\/div>\n

The Durango Interagency IMT 3 team maintained the Six Shooter Fire near Bondad at 75% containment and 224 acres, as of Saturday afternoon. The fire, located in Six Shooter Canyon on the Southern Ute Reservation, flared up Tuesday after a lightning strike from the same storm.<\/p>\n

Smoke from the fire has improved<\/a>, according to a Southern Ute Indian Tribe news release. Stage 1 fire restrictions, which prohibit open burning, agricultural burning, campfires and fireworks, will remain in effect until conditions improve.<\/p>\n

Loading Pen Fire<\/div>\n

The Loading Pen Fire, northwest of Durango in the Dolores River Valley, is about 90% contained as of Friday. The fire covers about 42 acres, and fire agencies estimate it will be fully contained by Monday. Smoke will continue to be visible to travelers along Colorado Highway 145.<\/p>\n

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

Agencies maintain progress on three other regional fires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4873,44,950,1152,28,83,29,310,199,549,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bondad","tag-dolores","tag-durango","tag-emergency-incident","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-newsletter","tag-pagosa-springs","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-united-states-forest-service","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53199","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=53199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53199"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}