{"id":66073,"date":"2020-02-28T15:15:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T22:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dry-conditions-prime-for-wildfires-in-southwestern-la-plata-county\/"},"modified":"2020-02-28T22:15:31","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T22:15:31","slug":"dry-conditions-prime-for-wildfires-in-southwestern-la-plata-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dry-conditions-prime-for-wildfires-in-southwestern-la-plata-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Dry conditions prime for wildfires in southwestern La Plata County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=452add55-2d97-46b5-9299-7db1be51cbf9&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1284\" height=\"864\" alt=\"Dry conditions have created a high risk of fire danger in southwest La Plata County.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Dry conditions have created a high risk of fire danger in southwest La Plata County.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A fire sparked by an ember from a burn barrel torched about an acre of property Thursday in southwestern La Plata County, a reminder for residents to take care with embers and controlled burns, said Fort Lewis Mesa Fire Chief John Lee.<\/p>\n<p>Firefighters responded around 4:30 p.m. to a report of a fire in the lower 100 block of County Road 130, near Kline, Lee said in an interview Friday. The fire was reported soon after it started; residents maintaining the burn barrel checked the fire soon after they started it and noticed an ember had blown out the top and burned nearby vegetation, Lee said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was called very early, that was a good thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the best of a bad situation there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dry conditions persist in Southwest Colorado with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov\/ftpref\/states\/co\/charts\/basinplotsmdasjrb20.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">regional snowpack tracking below average<\/a> for about a month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. La Plata County is split between <a href=\"https:\/\/droughtmonitor.unl.edu\/CurrentMap\/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">moderate and severe drought<\/a> with drier conditions existing in the southwestern corner of the county, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.<\/p>\n<p>Lee encouraged residents to put ashes from a fireplace into a metal bucket before disposing them and asked anyone who starts a burn barrel to check it often.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got really dry fuels right now,\u201d he said.<\/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>A small fire burned about an acre near Kline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[402,350,2037],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-drought","tag-fire","tag-fort-lewis-mesa-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66073","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=66073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66073"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}