The controlled burn on Animas City Mountain, years in the making, is complete. The project, the first of its kind for the mountain, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and required the collaboration of about a dozen agencies. But the management of the forest could prevent catastrophic fires that would cost millions to combat.
Mop-up efforts are also underway on the Vallecito-Piedra prescribed burn, where 1,112 acres were burned 10 miles northeast of Bayfield.
Both burns will make the affected and surrounding lands less susceptible to the impacts of wildfire by reducing the ground coverage of burnable material.
BLM spokeswoman Deana Harms said that although trails on Animas City Mountain and the surrounding areas will reopen Wednesday, users should ensure that they and any pets stay on existing trails. Firefighters do not suppress every square foot of the burn area, although they have taken steps to suppress smoldering within 132 feet of trails.
“I think the moisture has helped lately, but if they're really sensitive to smoke, there could be some smoky areas,” Harms said. “As you get farther into the interior there's going to be ash pits, some walking hazards possibly, smoldering vegetation and then there could be fire-weakened trees that could fall over.”
Ian Barrett, burn boss trainee with the Bureau of Land Management, said weather conditions lined up just about perfectly for the Animas City Mountain burn. He was surprised at how smoothly the operation went.
The burn required a 62-page plan and 115 personnel to complete.
By contrast, the Vallecito-Piedra burn conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, which burned twice as much ground, demanded only two days of ignitions and roughly 60 people to manage. The burn also included some surrounding private lands thanks to a federal statute known as the “Wyden Amendment,” that allows USFS personnel to conduct some work on private lands if that work benefits the adjacent national forest.
Barrett has been working on the Animas City Mountain project since 2018-19 after Durango residents objected to a similar project proposed by San Juan National Forest managers in 2009, he said. He started with public engagement to ensure the Durango community was educated on how the proposed fire mitigation stood to protect the environment and the city from wildfires.
What followed was two years of preparation, including chain saw work to cut down materials and make Animas City Mountain ready for controlled burning across eight units ranging from 28 acres to 160 and totaling about 500 acres, he said.
Harms said Animas City Mountain’s proximity to Durango increased the consequence and necessary precautions. The BLM fire was a “Type 1” burn – the most complex – while the Forest Service burn was classified as a “Type 2” fire.
“That in and of itself complicates a lot of things,” Harms said. “Smoke management was a big thing.”
Unlike with a Type 2 burn, the Animas City Mountain fire required an on-site meteorologist as well as an official to monitor air quality from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Both agencies are warning that smoky conditions could linger in the coming days as some material continues to smolder. Firefighters will continue to monitor the sites as needed.
On Saturday, charred grounds smoked and smoldered, but with moisture anticipated through this week, Barrett said he was confident that most of the smoke would dissipate about Wednesday.
The controlled burn on Animas City Mountain was one step in what Barrett hopes will be many more to come in building a “great wall” of fire protection around Durango.
Amy Schwarzbach with Durango Parks and Recreation said the community’s cooperation was key to the successful burn.
“I don’t know that we could have had such a supportive and educated community if people’s Facebook posts and Instagram posts didn’t blow up,” she said. “Seeing posts this week that said it’s a controlled burn, don’t call 911, trails are closed, give the firefighters the space they need – it was all possible because the Durango residents learned from all of our notices and then shared it.”
Barrett said on the first day of the burn May 8, about 70 concerned residents called 911 to report chimneys of smoke on Animas City Mountain. By about Friday, just 10 emergency calls were placed by distressed residents. The number of calls were drastically lower than the thousands he expected.
“We are super fortunate that everything lined up for this project,” he said. “There were so many moving pieces and coordination elements that were tricky. But they all just fell in place. We had good weather this week and we were able to be successful.”
Schwarzbach said controlled burns are healthy for forests because they burn organic materials and return nutrients to the soil, allowing new generations of native species to replenish the ecosystem.
Ponderosa pine, for example, is a species of pine tree that evolved and adapted to fire landscapes. It has thick, quirky bark that is fire resistant, and its seeds are actually triggered to “pop off” by intense heat, she said. Without natural fire, or a controlled burn imitating a natural fire the seeds never pop and new pines aren’t planted.
“When we talk about things like pine beetle kill and other issues that are going on, you need the reintroduction of new seeds so that you’ve got different age classes in the forest,” she said. “You want old trees, you want young trees. But without the introduction of fire to pop the seeds, that regeneration is not happening on its own with Mother Nature.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
