From where I sit today, about 15 miles from the Aspen Acres Fire, the sky is not an argument. It is smoke. The hills are not a theory. They are burning.
Fire officials say this fire was human-caused. In the narrowest sense, that means a person or human activity started the spark. But the larger truth is harder to look away from: Scientists wrote this script more than 30 years ago. They warned that a warming climate would dry forests, shrink snowpack, intensify drought, lengthen fire seasons and turn ordinary ignitions into disasters.
Now Colorado is living inside that warning.
Families are fleeing Beulah, Rye, San Isabel and Colorado City. Homes are gone. Livelihoods are uncertain. Firefighters are risking their lives in heat, wind and smoke while the rest of us watch ash fall on places we love.
This is why climate policy matters. It is not some distant political debate in Washington. It is the difference between preparation and abandonment, between clean energy and more pollution, between listening to scientists and pretending the flames are a surprise.
Colorado understands fire. We understand wind. We understand drought. What we should no longer tolerate is leadership that treats climate science as an inconvenience while our communities burn.
The Aspen Acres Fire may have been human-caused, but the conditions that let it explode were not a mystery. They were predicted. They were documented. They were ignored.
And now, from 15 miles away, I can see the cost.
Judy Ricks
Pueblo West