SAULS CREEK – Several firefighters in soot-covered gear almost blend into the landscape as they walk up and down a dirt road in the middle of the forest, just east of Bayfield. In their wake, small flames lap at the dry brush and crawl over the roots of the oak and pine trees, spreading deeper into the foliage.
To the untrained eye, the scene might seem antithetical to the job of a firefighter, whose overarching job is to put out fires.
But this fire is intentional. Restorative. And carefully controlled.
About 50 firefighters moved through the Sauls Creek area Saturday, carrying out a prescribed burn led by the San Juan National Forest. The 150-acre burn off U.S. Highway 160 is the first of the season and the culmination of months of planning.
Prescribed burns are one tool used to mitigate against wildfires, an especially pressing concern after Southwest Colorado’s dry winter.
“This is a backstop, if you will, for fire coming from the southwest and moving into the burbs around Bayfield,” said Kevin Lindner, fire prevention officer for the San Juan National Forest Service.
Through carefully planned burning, crews remove excess undergrowth and fuel before a wildfire starts, reducing the risk of a more destructive blaze later.
Prescribed fire also gives land managers a critical advantage when wildfires do occur, Lindner said. In treated areas, fire behavior is more predictable and typically less intense. Flames are more likely to stay on the ground rather than climb into the canopy, allowing firefighters to use those areas strategically during suppression efforts.
Managers can plan around previous burns, linking treated areas together to slow fire spread and guide containment strategies.
“It allows us to make advantageous decisions based on where our prescribed fires are,” Lindner said. “So that matters. It matters.”
For Southwest Colorado’s ponderosa pine forests, like the Saul’s Creek ecosystem, fire is restorative – regenerative and fortifying.
“Because these are fire-adapted ecosystems, they are meant to have fire in them regularly,” he said.
Historically, low-intensity surface fires burned through these forests every five to 15 years, which kept them more open, with fewer trees per acre and less dense brush, Linder said. Decades of fire suppression disrupted that cycle, leading to overstocked stands and thick undergrowth that both increases wildfire severity and degrades wildlife habitat by limiting visibility and forage.
While prescribed burns are designed to mimic natural fire, little is left to chance.
Saturday’s operation is the result of years of planning, including the development of a detailed prescribed burn plan, and months of coordination led by burn boss Nate Christiansen.
“I’m just psyched to be here,” he said Saturday, leaning out the driver’s seat of a San Juan National Forest truck as he monitored the burn from a dirt road serving as a control line.
Everything is going as planned.
“I gotta say that the smoke from the pad up there, it’s great, really. Good dispersion, good color, good direction,” he said.
He’s likely the one whose carrying the most stress over the day’s operations.
As burn boss, Christiansen is responsible for determining when conditions are safe to ignite, directing crews and ensuring the operation follows the approved plan.
He has spent months coordinating with the National Weather Service, agency administrators and local officials, selecting the right weather window and organizing the necessary personnel and equipment.
But the work begins years earlier, with the creation of a highly technical, legally binding burn plan that outlines the exact conditions under which a burn can occur.
“By no stretch of the imagination is putting down fire a decision that is made casually,” Lindner said.
The plan sets strict limits for weather, fuel moisture and fire behavior, and specifies the personnel and resources required on site. It also maps out, over multiple years, where treatments will be most effective.
The operation involves firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service, Los Pinos Fire Protection District, Upper Pine Fire Protection District, the Bureau of Land Management and private contractors – all working in a coordinated effort.
As firing crews ignite the underbrush, holding crews follow closely behind, working to keep the fire within designated boundaries.
As the firing crew ignite the underbrush, the holding crew, whose job is to keep the fire inside the designated parameters, follows behind.
The crews, made up of firefighters with the national Forest Service, Los Pinos Fire Protection District, Upper Pine River Fire Protection District, the Bureau of Land Management and even a private contractor are working in a carefully orchestrated fashion.
The National Weather Service is also working with them over the phone to monitor the changing weather conditions. Normally, Lindner said, the weather service staff would be on scene – but the changes being made at the federal level have made it untenable for this burn.
And while broader federal staffing and funding reductions have also impacted the Forest Service, the core fire organization is still robust, he said. They have all the resources they need to carry out the prescribed burn efficiently, and with appropriate safeguards.
There is a lot of public scrutiny on the Forest Service right now, Christiansen said. When it comes to prescribed burns, possibly even more.
In 2022, prescribed burns in New Mexico escaped control and merged into the largest wildfire in the state’s history, burning more than 341,000 acres. The fire destroyed homes, damaged critical water infrastructure and took years to begin recovery.
That event, attributed to multiple failures, remains fresh in the public’s mind, Lindner said. It’s one of the reasons why people are so skeptical about prescribed burns, and why there is maybe even more pressure to pull off Saturday’s burn without a hitch.
Combined with the bad winter and unusually warm temperatures, it has prompted some criticism and questioning about whether the Sauls Creek burn should be happening at all.
“I think the biggest misconception is that this is a casual shoot‑from‑the‑hip event, where there is not a ton of planning, resource allocation or thought,” he said.
And the second, more current misconception, is that people think the Southwest’s dry conditions automatically make it unsafe to burn anywhere, he said.
But officials say they wait until specific conditions are met, and on Saturday the wind is moving at just the right speed, in just the right direction. The moisture levels are just right and precipitation is expected to come in a few days later.
“The truth is, this is the right time,” Christiansen said. “We know it’s dry, but there are things we understand about the conditions – and the fuels – that the public may not.”
The forest is also in “green-up,” the spring period when vegetation begins to grow and retain moisture. During this time, fire behaves very differently than in the heat of summer, reducing the risk of extreme behavior.
“The public maybe doesn’t notice that. We do,” Christiansen said. “You just have to pay attention to that fourth dimension.”
jbowman@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this story misspelled Nate Christiansen’s last name as Christensen and incorrectly punctuated Sauls Creek as Saul’s Creek.
