{"id":99308,"date":"2018-06-08T20:08:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T02:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stage-set-for-dangerous-wildfire-conditions-months-ago\/"},"modified":"2018-06-08T20:08:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-09T02:08:42","slug":"stage-set-for-dangerous-wildfire-conditions-months-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stage-set-for-dangerous-wildfire-conditions-months-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Stage set for dangerous wildfire conditions months ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An absence of moisture and above average temperatures since last fall combine to create dangerous fire conditions in Southwest Colorado.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jeff Derry knew Southwest Colorado could be in for a dangerous fire season as early as last fall.<\/p>\n

Derry, executive director of the Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies in Silverton, tracks storms in the San Juan Mountains, usually starting in October.<\/p>\n

In a typical year, the center records an average of 12 snowstorms by the end of January. This year, however, the first snowstorms to hit the San Juan Mountains did not happen until January. When the month was over, only three storms had dropped modest amounts of snow in the high country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was obvious that early on we were digging a hole,\u201d Derry said. \u201cThen we just never had a chance to get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the past few months, Southwest Colorado has been in a state of critical fire danger, prompting a series of fire restrictions throughout the region.<\/p>\n

But restrictions are not a guarantee.<\/p>\n

On June 1, a fire broke out in the San Juan National Forest about 10 miles north of Durango. The 416 Fire has been burning for eight days, has grown to 7,180 acres and required thousands of people to evacuate their homes, with hundreds more put on notice.<\/p>\n

The stage was set for these intense fire conditions months ago.<\/p>\n

For the past two years, Southwest Colorado has had normal water and snowpack years through the winter snow season and the summer monsoons resulting in periods of only relative fire danger.<\/p>\n

But last fall, conditions took a turn. Between October and December, a weather station at the Durango-La Plata County Airport recorded 0.32 inches of precipitation, nearly 4 inches below those months\u2019 historic averages.<\/p>\n

Then, winter failed to show up. In the San Juan Mountains, the peak of the snowpack was only half of what the region usually receives based on more than 100 years of records.<\/p>\n

A weather station on Molas Pass reported a peak of just 11 inches of water-snow equivalent this year, compared with the average of nearly 20 inches. And Red Mountain Pass, which usually sees 24 inches, peaked at around 14 inches.<\/p>\n

Spring rains, too, were a no-show. As of Friday, that same weather station at the airport had recorded only 1.4 inches of precipitation since Jan. 1 \u2013 more than 4 inches below the historic average of 5.53 inches.<\/p>\n

Many attribute the lack of precipitation in Southwest Colorado to the La Ni\u00f1a weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which is known for pushing storms farther north and leaving the American Southwest, literally, out to dry.<\/p>\n

But the absence of moisture is only one part of the equation. Above average temperatures this spring caused what little snow there was to melt early, and consequently, fuels in the forest dried out earlier than usual.<\/p>\n

\"As
As of Friday, a weather station at the Durango-La Plata County Airport had recorded only 1.4 inches of precipitation since Jan. 1 \u2013 more than 4 inches below the historic average of 5.53 inches.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

From October to May, La Plata County was on average 3 degrees hotter than normal.<\/p>\n

The Animas River, as a result, recorded the third lowest peak flow in recorded history, and one of its earliest peaks. While the Animas usually hits high flows in early June, this year the river rose to its highest level around May 11.<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado has been in various levels of drought since October, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Near the end of April, the region was placed into the most extreme category of drought.<\/p>\n

These conditions caused Southwest Colorado to enter critical fire conditions by April. The entire corner of the state was under Stage 1 fire restrictions by May 1, and that was upgraded to Stage 2 last week.<\/p>\n

Now, the region is bracing for what could be a tough few weeks \u2013 June is historically the driest month of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can\u2019t be reiterated enough times what kind of a situation we\u2019re in and how people have to be aware of what they\u2019re doing in their lives on a daily basis,\u201d said Carey Newman with the San Juan National Forest.<\/p>\n

It looks as if the monsoon \u2013 the rainy season \u2013 is the only hope for changing the current weather pattern. But it\u2019s unclear when the rains will arrive.<\/p>\n

However, there is reason to be optimistic: The Climate Prediction Center says Southwest Colorado has about a 40 percent chance of receiving above average precipitation from July to September, according to a May 17 report.<\/p>\n

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

precipitation, high temperatures dry out forest fuels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2838,402,549],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-416-fire","tag-drought","tag-united-states-forest-service"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99308","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=99308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99308"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}