Fire crews work inward to eliminate hot spots in Hanover

It’s not enough to fight a fire from the perimeter — crews in Hanover focused on putting out hot spots in people’s backyards Thursday.

Three men from National Wildland Fire, a private group in Durango, went house to house making sure flames wouldn’t spark back up.

You won’t find this group of men fighting on the front lines, at least not for this fire.

The first step was looking at the burn scar to see if any smoke was visible, next was physically touching patches on the ground that appeared to have burned hotter.

Then, they crawl under whatever trees are in the area because heat can get trapped inside.

Rees Beck, the crew’s engine leader said, “the heat will follow the roots and it’ll sit there and smolder for a fair amount of time and sometimes it’ll get kicked back out with a heavy amount of wind and ember could get out.”

At the next house, everything seemed to be under control until the crew found a pile of tires that was radiating heat. When they took it apart, smoke erupted into the air and some pieces of tire glowed red.

Crews like Beck’s will be finding and eliminating those hot spots until the entire 117 Fire is out. It was about 60 percent contained as of Thursday.