Colorado fire season underway with Spruce Creek Fire in San Juan National Forest

A lightning strike sparked the Spruce Creek Fire on May 14th, and with 1,867 acres currently burning it marks the start of fire season in Colorado.

The fire, located some 11 miles northeast of Dolores in the San Juan National Forest, is burning in the Dolores Ranger District and currently at 0% containment. That said, it does not appear to be an imminent threat to any structures and is burning in an area that is surrounded by forest service roads, per Inciweb.

In other words, there are existing fire breaks with said roads, and a pair of Interagency Hotshot crews are already working the area. As the Durango Herald noted, the fire is currently in an area that was already being prepped for a prescribed burn, and the hotshots are actively managing the fire’s spread to encompass that surface area with the forest roads as their fire lines.

The fire sits in an area that entered May short on its usual snowpack. According to the National Weather and Climate Center’s iMap of snow-water equivalent, the Upper Colorado-Dolores region sits at just 70% of its the 1991-2020 median level. In other words, 30% of the snowpack that’s usually still in that part of the state this time of year is decidedly not there, and the fire worries that usually don’t pop up until at least mid June have already begun to rear their ugly heads.

While the majority of the central and northern portions of the state sit at (or above) their median snowpack levels, the southern portion (and most all of the San Juan Mountains) are well below median as we near the end of May (and, in the mountains, the realistic end of the chance of more snow falling). That means that the only natural defense for increasing fire conditions in the area lies in the hope of monsoon season showing up in July when the wind direction becomes predominantly more southerly.

Problem there, though, is that while more storms bring more moisture, they also bring with them lightning, and that’s precisely what’s started the Spruce Creek Fire and fire season altogether.

It’s a precarious situation each and every year, though the increase in the wild weather swings has come to exacerbate the voracity of some fires. As a result, getting (and holding on to) fire insurance for many residents of the forested mountains has become increasingly difficult as many insurers simply refuse to offer plans, something CBS Colorado covered with a Gilpin County resident earlier today.

It goes without saying, but as the high country dries out over the next few months, lighting fires while camping will become a much more serious thing to monitor as fire danger spreads. Always check the Colorado Emergency Management interactive map to see which counties have fire restrictions in place before setting out on any backcountry (or frontcountry) trip to make sure you’re not setting yourself, and everyone else, at risk.

Fingers crossed this particular fire dwindles quickly as the next four months figure to see more pop up across the state.