{"id":98329,"date":"2018-08-20T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T17:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/plans-for-prescribed-burns-put-on-hold-in-fire-fatigued-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2018-08-20T11:55:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T17:55:00","slug":"plans-for-prescribed-burns-put-on-hold-in-fire-fatigued-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/plans-for-prescribed-burns-put-on-hold-in-fire-fatigued-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans for prescribed burns put on hold in fire-fatigued Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The U.S. Forest Service says it will put its plan for prescribed burns in Southwest Colorado on hold because conditions pose too high a risk.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Plans for prescribed burns \u2013 intentionally set fires on the landscape aimed at reducing the risk of larger, more devastating wildfires \u2013 have been temporarily put on hold this fall as wildfires rage across the country.<\/p>\n

Every year, the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s three ranger districts across the San Juan National Forest in Southwest Colorado \u2013 Dolores, Columbine (Bayfield and Durango) and Pagosa Springs \u2013 put together a list of burns they would like to conduct.<\/p>\n

On average, these three districts ignite about six to 10 prescribed burns, said Richard Bustamante, San Juan National Forest fire manager.<\/p>\n

This fall, the Forest Service had planned to conduct prescribed burns on about 12,000 acres in the Saul\u2019s Creek and Yellow Jacket area, east of Bayfield.<\/p>\n

But wildfires across the U.S. have strained firefighting resources, making it too dangerous to set a prescribed burn should it escape and go out of control.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrescribed fires are falling on the back burner right now,\u201d Bustamante said.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service\u2019s wildfire managers look at a variety of parameters to determine if it is the right time to set a prescribed burn, like how dry are dead fuels on the forest floor, as well as current and extended weather conditions.<\/p>\n

But one major factor is if firefighting resources are available should the fire get out of control.<\/p>\n

With 110 active large fires burning nearly 1.8 million acres, mostly in the western United States, according to the National Interagency Fire Center<\/a>, those resources aren\u2019t available.<\/p>\n

The National Multi- Agency Coordination Group<\/a> establishes \u201cPreparedness Levels\u201d on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest level, for whether firefighting resources are available to respond to new incidents.<\/p>\n

Right now, that level is at 5. During the 416 Fire, for perspective, the preparedness level was a 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to have a large wildfire, it\u2019s best to do it when you\u2019re the only show in town because you have all these firefighters available to come and help,\u201d Bustamante said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut all these places \u2013 California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah \u2013 are experiencing large fires right now, so competition for resources is really high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holding prescribed burns in Southwest Colorado isn\u2019t completely off the table this year, Bustamante said. If national fires die down and weather conditions are right, the Forest Service could go ahead with its plans.<\/p>\n

Wildfire officials also consider a community\u2019s fatigue after dealing with major wildfires, as is the case in Southwest Colorado. But, if conditions are right, it must take advantage of setting prescribed burns in an attempt to prevent future devastating wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, years like this get people\u2019s attention because they don\u2019t want a devastating wildfire again,\u201d Bustamante said. \u201cWe have a lot of community support because fires under our terms are better for the future of forest health.\u201d<\/p>\n

For most of the Forest Service\u2019s 100 years, the agency operated on an extremely aggressive mandate to put out every fire that broke out on the natural landscape to protect land for grazing and logging, among other uses.<\/p>\n

But the agency is going through a sea change when it comes to managing fire.<\/p>\n

Suppressing every fire outbreak has been counterproductive because it has allowed vegetation to build up, so that when fires do occur, they burn at such a high intensity, many times plant life can\u2019t regenerate.<\/p>\n

Wildlife managers are now trying to create natural fire patterns, where low-intensity fires sweep through every three to five years or so, through prescribed burns.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll fire isn\u2019t bad,\u201d Bustamante said.<\/p>\n

Officials with the Forest Service have been identifying areas where it is a good idea to let naturally started fires burn, and areas where they should immediately be put out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first project we\u2019ve planned for managed fire,\u201d Hon Schlapfer, an assistant fire management officer, said in a previous interview. \u201cWe\u2019ve really picked apart this landscape and figured out what needs to stay and how fire can play a beneficial role without having to do it on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Conditions are too dangerous, officials say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,445,199,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98329","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=98329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98329"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}