{"id":64572,"date":"2019-11-01T19:42:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-02T01:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wildfire-danger-is-high-in-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2019-11-02T01:42:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-02T01:42:54","slug":"wildfire-danger-is-high-in-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wildfire-danger-is-high-in-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire danger is high in Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=63591270-9872-41bc-a95e-553537483190&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1600\" height=\"994\" alt=\"It might be cold and it might be early November, but emergency responders are warning residents of the high fire danger in Southwest Colorado.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">It might be cold and it might be early November, but emergency responders are warning residents of the high fire danger in Southwest Colorado.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Conditions are \u201cripe\u201d for wildfire in Southwest Colorado, and careless or unconscious behavior could spark \u201cpretty quick fire movement,\u201d said Butch Knowlton, La Plata County director of emergency preparedness.<\/p>\n<p>High precipitation early this year spurred growth of grasses and weeds, plants that have since dried from frost and low moisture this fall, Knowlton said. The prevalence of light fuels mixed with high winds and a dry atmosphere extended Southwest Colorado\u2019s wildfire season, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTypically, people associate colder temperatures with less fire activity,\u201d Knowlton said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUntil we get snow or heavy precipitation that crushes or knocks down those fuels, we could see fire spread real quick,\u201d Knowlton said.<\/p>\n<p>Durango Fire Protection District Chief Hal Doughty said he has retained summer firefighting crews because of the increased risk of wildfire. DFPD has not reduced the number of burn permits it has issued, Doughty said, but people lighting controlled burns \u201creally need to use a lot of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are on edge because of the fires in California,\u201d Doughty said. \u201cWe are absolutely keeping an eye out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:bhauff@durangoherald.com\">bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>grasses, dry conditions raise risk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3834,28,29,4259,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-emergency-management-director-butch-knowlton","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-sign-up","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64572","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=64572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64572"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}