The Bureau of Land Management Tres Rios Field Office announced Tuesday that it will postpone a prescribed burn on Animas City Mountain that had been scheduled for sometime this month.
Drivers headed into Durango on U.S. Highway 550 from the north had been warned by blinking signs for over a week that there might be smoke in the area. However, citing recent precipitation and short days, BLM officials ultimately decided the burn would have to wait. They hope to proceed with the plan if conditions make it possible to do so in spring 2023.
BLM spokeswoman Deana Harms said prescribed burns take significant planning – the process for this one began in April 2020. The Animas City Mountain burn will be classified a “Type 1” burn, the most complex type of fire according to the BLM’s classification system for incident complexity.
“Because its so close to the city of Durango, all the conditions have to be right,” Harms said. “If that were away from towns and everything else, it would not be a Type 1 burn. But because it sits next to the city of Durango, we have to look at risk ... we have to look at treatment and make sure that the treatment is what we designed it to be.”
The burn would have treated up to 652 acres of Animas City Mountain and consumed primarily scrub oak and Ponderosa pine. By reducing the presence of understory fuels, the prescribed burn would likely decrease the size and severity of a naturally occurring forest fire.
As the name would indicate, prescribed burns are intended to have a specific effect on the landscape. In this case, the weather conditions jeopardized the intended outcome. Additionally, Harms said there are relatively few burn bosses in the country who are qualified to oversee a fire of this complexity, and that aligning weather conditions with the availability of a qualified burn boss presented a challenge.
Given all the planning that went into developing the prescription for this burn, Harms said canceling it was “kind of a big deal.” However, it was a necessary step to ensure the desired outcomes can be achieved and prevent unnecessary smoke pollution.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
