Local fire danger increases
Wet weather had reduced the area’s fire danger for much of the year but drier weather has brought the danger back.
Contributing to the concern is excess vegetation, stimulated by constant rain earlier, that is drying out and providing more potential fuel for fires.
Scott Campbell of El Paso County’s wildland firefighting unit said his team has responded to three small roadside fires recently.
“Typically, that means (the causes are) mechanical failure on a car, it’s brakes or a dragging chain, or something with a catalytic converter that’s kicking off,” he said.”
Campbell said the unit patrols for wildfires occasionally but the central location of its headquarters near Interstate 25 and Fillmore Street allow the unit to reach any part of the county in an equal time period.
“Sometimes, on patrols, you never get to the fire in time,” he said. “If we’re on the far west side of the county and there’s a fire on the far east side, we’re at least an hour away. We’re way out of position.”
The U.S. Forest Service conducts wildfire patrols on weekends, said spokeswoman Dawn Sanchez.
“We’re still having a problem with some people leaving their campfires unattended,” she said. “That’s a major concern.”
In Colorado Springs, workers said they’ve eliminated their backlog of mowing grasses and trimming weeds produced by constant rain earlier.
“But in parks and open spaces, we still have to be very cautious and thoughtful, and the folks out there using it, need to be cautious and thoughtful,” said Kurt Schroeder, parks operations manager.
Schroeder also said in recent years, the city restricted smoking in parks to lessen the fire danger.
However, Campbell said mowing and trimming may have little effect on reducing fire fuels.
“When you mow it, all you do is take it from a vertical position and put it into a horizontal position, so it doesn’t do any fuel modifications,” he said.
“There’s no lessening of the amount of fuel. You could also say that if you took green grass and mowed it, the stuff that’s mowed is now dead,” Campbell said.
Authorities expect the fire danger to remain relatively high until the area receives its first significant snowfall.
