There was a whisper of hope. Maybe there would be a little bit of green. Maybe the aerial photos from September captured the wrong tree. But hope faded as the arborists, foresters and scientists reached the blackened grove at the heart of the 54,000-acre, 416 fire, near the confluence of Hermosa Creek and Dutch Creek […]
Wildfire
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Environment, News, Wildfire
Wildfires in Colorado cost $130 million in 2018. Here are the details, down to the $40 daily rate on portable toilets.
KREMMLING — Dozens of empty tents staked on dried-up, end-of-summer grass rustled in a wind-whipped cow pasture north of town. Fire camp was nearly deserted, as the hundreds of crew members working to contain the Silver Creek wildfire had been gone since just after breakfast, fueled by fried eggs, sausage and potatoes. In the distance, […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Wildfire
The Buffalo fire, near Silverthorne, was one of the first big tests for fire breaks in Colorado. Now, communities are changing their tune toward them.
SUMMIT COUNTY — It wasn’t long before a wildfire that broke out near Silverthorne one morning in early June turned into a towering inferno with flames shooting several hundred feet in the air. The fire — fed by strong wind and high summer heat — sent smoke billowing over Summit County, consuming trees as it […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Wildfire
Deep inside Black Forest, a lesson in the importance of wildfire mitigation
BLACK FOREST — Dave Root’s state-issued pickup truck bounces down an overgrown two-track, a pair of pinecones stuck between the hood and windshield wipers. Though he grew up in Colorado Springs and still lives there, Root has been working among the trees in Black Forest for the better part of three decades. It’s the cathedral […]
Posted inNews, Wildfire
Many Black Forest residents were thrilled to find their property intact after the 2013 wildfire. For some, the ordeal was just beginning.
BLACK FOREST — At first, Nancy Trosper could hardly believe her good fortune. Although she initially heard that her house had burned to the ground in the disastrous 2013 Black Forest fire, the report proved erroneous. When she saw it still standing, and authorities finally allowed her to move back in, she was ecstatic. But […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics and Government, Wildfire
For one man in a Colorado foothills town, watching the Black Forest wildfire explode was almost like looking in the mirror.
In Bailey, John Van Doren invited Black Forest residents to speak there in the hope that he and his neighbors might benefit from lessons learned. That led to a plan.
Posted inNews, Wildfire
Black Forest has rebuilt after the fire that gutted it. But is it at risk of being destroyed again?
BLACK FOREST — For more than five years after the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, Bill Mantia methodically cleared the charred skeleton of a forest from what once was his 20-acre parcel of paradise. Every day it went like this: Cut down a dead tree, saw it into smaller pieces, stack the wood, haul […]