{"id":65896,"date":"2019-06-20T12:16:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-flag-fire-warning-issued-for-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2019-06-20T18:16:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:16:02","slug":"red-flag-fire-warning-issued-for-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/red-flag-fire-warning-issued-for-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Red flag fire warning issued for Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for fire danger Thursday for most of La Plata and Montezuma counties.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Despite heavy snowpack this winter and a wet spring, conditions in Southwest Colorado can change on a dime: The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for much of La Plata and Montezuma counties from noon to 9 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combination of dry vegetation in the lower elevations, gusty winds and low relative humidity will create critical fire weather conditions that make open burning dangerous,\u201d the NWS said in a statement.<\/p>\n

According to a weather station at Durango-La Plata County Airport, more than 9 inches of precipitation has been recorded since Jan. 1 \u2013 nearly 4 inches above the historic average.<\/p>\n

Still, conditions can change and dry out quickly in the arid Southwest, and with it comes the risk of fire danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because it snowed this winter, doesn\u2019t mean there won\u2019t be a fire season,\u201d said John Gilbert, captain of the wildland division for the Los Pinos Fire Protection District. \u201cPeople still need to stay vigilant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Typically, in Southwest Colorado, fire season starts in June, just after the green up in spring and the subsequent precipitation brought by monsoons in July and August.<\/p>\n

May brought spring showers this year: The weather station at the airport recorded about 1.5 inches of precipitation, about an inch more than historic averages. June, however, is off to a dry start, with just .07 inches of precipitation, about .25 inches under the norm with a third of the month to go.<\/p>\n

Dry conditions and hot temperatures this week have dried out fuels like grasses and brush on the landscape. Add the 25 mph wind gusts forecast for Thursday, and the fire danger has returned in full force.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does change pretty quickly here,\u201d said Karola Hanks, fire marshal with the Durango Fire Protection District. \u201cA lot of us live here because of the number of days with beautiful sunshine, but those are the conditions that dry those fuels out, which then become very susceptible to fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanks said DFPD hired an additional wildland crew for the year, which is available if fire season picks up. She also urged caution for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, a time when some residents hold their own firework shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping people will be smart this year and careful \u2026 and don\u2019t overestimate what the moisture from this winter gave us,\u201d Hanks said.<\/p>\n

Gilbert said the moisture from the past few months, while it doesn\u2019t stop wildfires, does help crews put them out. Still, he said the possibility of fires breaking out never truly goes away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll it takes is one mistake, then we\u2019re off to the races,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Richard Bustamante, fire staff officer for the San Juan National Forest, used the 2017 Lightner Creek Fire as an example of a fire that started in a wet year that held serious potential for becoming catastrophic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get a fire in the wrong spot, on the wrong day, and you can still get a large wildfire or something that threatens homes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last year at this time, the Forest Service had reported about 140 wildland fire starts. So far this year, that number is down to about 35 fires. But, Bustamante said many of the dead fuels on the forest floor haven\u2019t quite recovered from last year\u2019s drought, and fire danger remains a concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the fire danger isn\u2019t necessarily high now, it doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t be careful with fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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

Wind, low humidity and dry vegetation cause concern<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1480,350,28,1953,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-fire-protection-district","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-los-pinos-fire-protection-district","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65896","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=65896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65896"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}