Residents and visitors to Durango may see smoke and fire on Animas City Mountain this spring.
The Bureau of Land Management is preparing to conduct a prescribed burn on the public lands just north of Durango beginning as early as late April. The burn will take place over a period of a few days and will force the closure of trails in the area. It is intended to improve the forest landscape and reduce the risk of wildfires at the dangerous wildland-urban interface.
“This planned burn is a meaningful step forward in improving ecosystem resiliency, enhancing wildlife habitat and reducing the potential for catastrophic fire on BLM managed public lands in the Durango area,” said Tres Rios Field Manager Connie Clementson in a news release. “We ask for the community’s patience as we work collaboratively with our partners to implement this important treatment, which will help maintain the unique quality of life so many enjoy in Southwest Colorado.”
The BLM has partnered with other federal, state and local agencies to perform the burn this year, targeting up to 494 acres of forest for treatment.
Firefighters will finalize preparations beginning April 16 with the goal of completing the burn within a month window ending May 15, depending on the weather. Crews will light fires over two to three days at which time they will close the mountain and its trails to the public for safety.
The BLM has divided Animas City Mountain into seven “burn units.” However, the federal agency will not burn the northernmost two units this spring to protect peregrine falcons and other nesting birds.
Crews will start by igniting fires on the northern edge of the burn area and moving down the mountain.
Residents and visitors will likely see a column of smoke and flames, said Deana Harms, a fire management specialist with the BLM’s Southwest Colorado Fire & Aviation Management Unit.
“A lot of times people think it’s going to be light smoke like a campfire, but we let the fire do its thing. We make sure that it’s doing what we want it to do,” Harms said.
While significant smoke may cause concern, Harms said the BLM would inform residents if a prescribed burn got out of hand.
The agency previously carried out forest thinning on Animas City Mountain from 2010 to 2012, Harms said. Crews used a technique called “mastication” where they mechanically mow and mulch the forest understory. The method is meant to prevent fires from leaving the ground and becoming “crown fires” that engulf trees.
“To my knowledge, I don’t think we’ve ever burned up there,” Harms said. “If we have timber, we try to do a little bit of thinning prior to actually burning.”
Low severity fires created during a prescribed burn mimic the natural fires that have historically burned across Southwest Colorado’s forests, carrying with them a number of environmental benefits.
The Animas City Mountain prescribed burn is meant to open wildlife corridors, add nutrients to forest soils and spur the regrowth of native grass and other vegetation, including resprouting Gambel oak so that it is more edible for wildlife, according to a PowerPoint the BLM created about the burn.
It will also reduce wildfire risk at Durango’s wildland-urban interface where forests and grasslands meet human development.
The wildland-urban interface, or WUI, has been a particular focus of the wildfire mitigation efforts of La Plata County, the city of Durango and other federal and state agencies in the area.
A 2019 study by researchers with the U.S. Forest Service showed that the majority of wildfires in California occur within the WUI, accounting for the great majority (82%) of all buildings destroyed.
A 2017 Colorado wildfire risk assessment by the Colorado State Forest Service found that the area surrounding Durango has some of the highest risk of wildfires in the WUI in Southwest Colorado.
“Treating vegetation in a larger-scale prescribed burn helps to reduce the fuel loading,” Harms said. “If we were to get a really dry summer, these treatments actually help to reduce crowning fire(s) that would be heading toward large populated areas.”
Prescribed burns in the WUI also give firefighters a place to concentrate their efforts to slow the spread of wildfires, she said.
Residents and visitors can find more information by visiting the BLM’s Animas City Mountain prescribed burn page on InciWeb, a federal interagency emergency information system.
ahannon@durangoherald.com
