While Colorado may be on track to have an “average” wildfire year, southern Colorado is expected to see elevated fire risk amid dry conditions, fire officials and the governor warned Wednesday.
“Today is more of a question of when, not if, a fire might affect our communities and that’s why we’re hard at work upping the bar on fire preparedness at the state level,” Gov. Jared Polis said during the state’s annual wildfire outlook held inside the state’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control’s hangar in Broomfield.
Elevated fire risk will continue through May in southeastern Colorado, where there has been a lack of moisture and high winds have swept across parched land. That risk will shift toward southwestern Colorado by the end of the summer, Polis said.
Summer will bring average wildfire risk for most of the state, Polis said. But even during an average year, about 6,000 fires will likely spark in Colorado and approximately 160,000 acres will be scorched.
Ahead of peak wildfire season, the state’s strategy to fight fires starts with mitigation work to prevent fires and satellite surveillance tools to quickly spot sparks before they grow into out-of-control fires, Polis said.
“The situation we’re always worried about is, if those out-of-state resources are not available, we need to make sure to have our own,” the governor said.
A statewide dispatch system will allow local first responders to request firefighting equipment from the state with shorter response times, Polis said. Over the last several years, the state has poured in millions of dollars to grow its fleet, including adding two Firehawks, converted military helicopters that can quickly crisscross the state to douse flames.
A helicopter makes a turn to collect water from a lake to drop on a fire burning through ridges near the Ken Caryl Ranch development, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, southwest of Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Colorado’s second Firehawk is expected to be delivered Aug. 12. Two Type II helicopters, staffed by state fire personnel and based in Montrose and Cañon City, will also be put into service this year and can deliver water, fire suppressants and supplies to local first responders.
Colorado’s fire division also has about 170 firefighters across the state.
Amid cuts across the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management — agencies that directly support the state’s wildfire mitigation and firefighting efforts — officials said they felt Colorado is adequately staffed for the wildfires to come.
So far, 54 seasonal federal firefighters have been hired, compared with 58 last year, Doug Vilsack, who oversees the management of millions of acres of public lands across the state as Colorado director for the Bureau of Land Management.
“We’re confident in our firefighting capability for the summer. We are obviously managing through a transition,” Vilsack said.
Funding for ancillary programs within the BLM have been impacted under the Trump administration, he said, noting lower staffing levels for its recreation program.
“But I think the point of this conversation today is that we have a great network here in the state, and we can turn to our friends at the state, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and others who are boots on ground to help us address some of those issues,” he said.
The Forest Service expects a similar number of firefighters to be hired this year, Troy Heithecker, regional forester for the Rocky Mountain Region, said. To date, 560 have been hired and he expects an ongoing hiring event to bring in about 200 more.
“In terms of cuts, fire and law enforcement have been exempted,” he said. “We haven’t really seen any, so we’re feeling pretty good, as good as we can.”
More than 500 workers through AmeriCorps, a national service program, are also expected to help to fight fires in Colorado this summer, as well as build fire breaks and defensible spaces in communities, though their status is unclear, Polis said.
The federal program placed most of its staff on administrative leave last week until further notice.
Federal partnerships are key in Colorado’s firefighting efforts, but the state has shifted to become more self-reliant in the last few years and coordinate resources to help local firefighters, Colorado Department of Fire Prevention and Control Mike Morgan said.
Spencer Herda and Dani Doyle of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention assess a tree after cutting it down near the Sawmill Trail in Golden. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)“At any given normal time, there’s approximately 18,000 federal wildland firefighters in the United States of America. There’s approximately 1.1 million firefighters at the state and local level,” Morgan said.
“The true boots on the ground assets for firefighting efforts are our local governments.”
Colorado’s top 20 largest fires have occurred in the last 20 years, he said. Four of the five largest burned in 2018 and 2020.
“We’ve had major fires and disasters every month in the year in the state of Colorado,” Morgan said. “We can’t afford to let our guard down.”
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