When most people think of the wildfire season, they naturally think of summertime and the hottest weather. But in truth, the fall months can be the most dangerous in terms of true wildfire danger in the mountains. The grasses that are so flammable have had time to grow high, and have had months to dry out. Fall in the Rocky Mountains often has little precipitation, and yet at the same time, the famous downsloping “Nederland” winds can start to pick up, where 70-80 mile per hour gusts can plummet down the mountainsides.
I already posted about the recent fire ban that Boulder County enacted in light of these dry conditions, and sure enough yesterday we got thunderstorms moving in the area that created a dangerous situation. On the face of it, storms moving in might seem like a good thing, but thunderstorms can also bring lots of lightning with them, and not always a lot of actual rain. Such was the case yesterday, when the storms brought lots of lightning, thunder, and hail, but virtually no rain. Having spent some time in the mountains both in the Sierra in California and in Colorado, I knew this was not good.
One summer I worked with the Forest Service in Lake Tahoe, and during a particularly rough, stormy night with lots of dry lightning, I worked fire dispatch with the Fire Management Officer for the district. We basically took all the reports of smoke, and plotted them on a map, and sent out teams of firefighters to check things out and hopefully contain them before they became something serious. During that one 24-hour period, there were something like 200 lightning strikes throughout our district.
During the “olden days”, this is what all those fire lookout towers that you see all over the western United States were for. People would staff those lookout towers, scouring the mountains and hillsides for signs of smoke during the height of the fire season. I can’t imagine a more thankless job. To have the mental focus to constantly be on the look out for signs of smoke and fire and radio it in, day after day, week after week, month after month. These days, most of those towers are abandoned, some are rented out to people to stay at over night. And most land management agencies now use spotter planes to look for signs of fires.
Still many fires are called in by local residents who happen to spot the smoke or flames. Such was the case last night, as Bryon was working from his office in our second floor loft and happened to gaze out the window, and spotted orange flames burning over on the nearby Pee Wink ridge. He quickly yelled out to me, “I think there’s a fire on the ridge over there!” — words that strike fear in the heart of any mountain resident. We quickly scrambled out onto our deck for a closer look and there was definitely a fire burning over in the woods less than a mile from our house as the crow flies.
While it scared me, I’ve had enough experience with wildfires and living in this area to recognize the bad and the good. The good — it’s night time, it’s cooler, and typically fires “lay down” at night. There was virtually no wind — yet another good thing. We called Boulder County dispatch and reported the fire, and it turned out another resident had called too. Within about 15 minutes, we spotted fire engine trucks and firefighters over there, and within 20 minutes, the fire was out. Crisis averted.
But in those moments, I was mentally thinking what we would do if things had been different. What if the winds were kicking up. Where were our fire boxes? What could we gather up in 10 minutes to get out of there and evacuate? This is the reality we live with living in mountain country. I’m glad our reality last night turned out to be ok, but the truth is we won’t be out of the woods this season until we get a good snow, or several days of dousing rain.
