Durango Fire Protection District crews bore through the brush to respond to a small fire in the trees atop a hillside above Lightner Creek late Friday evening.
The fire was contained and is considered extinguished, although the site is still being monitored.
Fire Chief Randy Black said the crews responded to a report of the fire above County Road 207 around 10 p.m. and formed a fire line around the blaze, which was about 40 feet by 40 feet large, pushing burning materials into the center of the contained space.
The crews allowed the contained fire to burn through the night. Other crews hiked to the scene early Saturday morning, bringing six bladder bags of water with them, and mopped up the fire, he said.
Although the fire is considered extinguished at this point, crews continue to monitor the site.
Black said the cause of the fire remains under investigation, although there is no evidence of a lightning strike on Friday or earlier this week.
The only practical natural cause for a fire is lightning, he said, and the investigation is considering all possibilities.
The fire district said in a Facebook post on Saturday a helicopter may be visible assisting with operations. But Black said fire resources are tight right now because of other regional fire activity spanning from Utah across the Western Slope into New Mexico.
“Lightning maps were pretty scary to look at last night,” he said. “If you looked at the volume of lightning that came through from New Mexico all the way to Wyoming, it was a heck of a storm.”
La Plata County and the city of Durango announced stage 2 fire restrictions on Thursday, and City Council is scheduled to review the city manager’s office’s recommendation to continue the city’s restrictions on Monday.
Between the two governments, the restrictions forbid open burning; fire stoves; gas grills; welding and metal grinding; smoking on public land; the discharge of firearms; and the use of combustion engines, including chain saws, lawn mowers and generators; among other activities.
“The community’s support of these restrictions are key to helping decrease the threat of fire to Durango during this unprecedented wildfire environment,” Erin Hyder, acting city manager, said in a news release on Thursday.
Black said while not being able to use charcoal grills and the like is inconvenient, the restrictions are necessary. He said reports out of Utah are saying they’ve never had forecasts like they are getting now.
Winds blew smoke through Southwest Colorado’s skies from the Cottonwood Fire in southwest Utah that had grown to 61,000 acres by Wednesday.
The Cottonwood Fire, the largest fire in the United States, started Monday and had grown to over 112 square miles as of Friday, The Associated Press reported.
“The risk that we’re facing now is really unprecedented,” Black said. “... That’s why we’re trying to protect our town, our watershed, our economy, our homes, our people, our firefighters, everybody.”
He said DFPD needs the community to partner with it and take the city’s and the county’s fire restrictions seriously.
cburney@durangoherald.com
