Five lightning-sparked fires were burning across more than 5,340 acres around southwestern Colorado on Friday after expanding overnight — spewing smoke that prompted renewed air quality health alerts — and firefighters tasked with full suppression were counting on rain.
“If all we get is wind and lightning, things could pick up. There’s some single-tree torching and it can look pretty active at times, mostly in the afternoons,” federal Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Niki Carpenter said at the Little Mesa fire, which was burning pinon, juniper and sage forest and grew to 433 acres southwest of Delta on the Dominguez Escalante National Conservation Area.
Little Mesa fire
Like firefighters deployed on two other fires north of Pagosa Springs, firefighters directed to squelch the Little Mesa fire were holding off due to difficult terrain and the intensity of flames.
“That kind of fire isn’t safe for firefighters to go direct, so our strategy for suppression has been ‘contain and confine,’ ” Carpenter said.
On Thursday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment extended air quality health alerts covering areas around Gunnison and in Archuleta, Mineral and Hinsdale counties west of the San Luis Valley, advising residents and visitors to stay indoors when smoke thickens.
Quartz Ridge and Bear Creek fires
The Quartz Ridge fire burning deep inside the 158,790-acre South San Juan Wilderness, about 13 miles northeast of Pagosa Springs, expanded to 1,298 acres, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Lorena Williams said.
The Bear Creek fire burning 23 miles northwest of Pagosa Springs, west of the Weminuche Valley, grew to 375 acres, Williams said.
Federal land managers ordered full suppression of both fires, even though the national policy calls for letting fires in remote forests burn when possible to let forests become more resilient and healthy. But the difficulties of reaching flames due to steepness and the heavy dead and fallen trees in those areas forced firefighters to back off.
“The fires spread laterally but they didn’t make runs” on Wednesday, Williams said Thursday morning. “We anticipate scattered showers, lower temperatures, and higher relative humidity – which reduces fire behavior,” she said. “We don’t expect rapid growth of either of these fires if the weather pans out as forecast. But they aren’t going away just because of some cloud cover.”
Lowline and Dry Lake fires
The Lowline fire north of Gunnison has burned across 1,871 acres. Federal fire managers listed it as 55% contained on Friday. The Dry Lake fire near Bayfield, which has burned across 1,372 acres, was listed as 65% contained.
