Forest Service frustrated by unattended campfires in southern Colorado

Unattended campfires in southern Colorado national forests, a problem we first reported in late May, continue to be an issue, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

A tweet sent Sunday by officials in the Pike and San Isabel national forests included a video showing an abandoned campfire being extinguished.

While this campfire may look like it’s out it still has enough heat to instantly boil water. Crews spent most of today putting out campfires that were abandoned by campers. Please put your campfires out cold before you leave them. #DrownStirFeel pic.twitter.com/FXwyK4oQFI

— USFS_Pike&San Isabel (@PSICC_NF) July 7, 2019

The tweet closed with the social media tag #DrownStirFeel, advising campers to drown campfires with water, stir the water into the campfire and feel it with your hand until it is cool to the touch.

In late May, the seven-acre 300 Fire, northeast of Woodland Park, was ignited by an unattended campfire.

KRDO’s coverage of that story revealed that such campfires are a growing concern, with more than 1,000 of them over the last five years.

Those campfires started 120 individual wildfires, the Forest Service said.

The continued occurrence of abandoned campfires has had few serious results this fire season because conditions are wetter and cooler than in recent seasons.

Violators can be fined at least $300 and be forced to pay the cost of any firefighting efforts that result.

So how can the Forest Service persuade more campers to extinguish their campfires, despite constant messages to do so?

“We’ve tried raising the fine and the punishment,” said Dawn Sanchez, a Forest Service spokeswoman. “None of that has worked. We could follow people around and take down their names and license plate numbers, but we’d prefer not to do that. We’d prefer that people cooperate.”

Sanchez said the Forest Service is focusing more on education, by teaching campers the right ways to start and extinguish campfires.

“We have an equal mix of local people and people from outside our area who are leaving campfires hot,” she said. “Many of them think the fire’s out without making sure it is. Others really don’t know how much it takes to make sure a fire’s out.”

Donnie Byrne, who was camping Monday near Rampart Reservoir with his family, said he’s not sure all the recommendations for extinguishing a campfire are necessary.

“If people are teaching it that way, maybe that’s the best way to check it,” he said. “But I personally don’t think I need to put my hand where a fire might have been, to see if it’s out. If there’s no smoke coming from it, it’s out.”

As Byrne’s girlfriend, Ariana Romano, stood nearby holding their baby boy, Adam, she expressed concern about other potential fire risks.

“We came home one day, and there were a bunch of cigarette butts less than a foot away from our gas tank that we use to fuel our generator,” she said. ” I was terrified and upset. That could have lit our trailer on fire, it could have caused a massive forest fire.”

Complicating enforcement for the Forest Service is that the campfires are abandoned not on campgrounds but on “dispersed campsites,” which essentially is any land along a national forest road that someone can stop and build a campsite.

Sanchez said dispersed campers aren’t required to register for such sites as campers in established campgrounds are, giving rangers no way to track someone who abandons a campfire in a dispersed area.
“California is the only state I know of that requires registration for dispersed campers,” she said.

In most instances, dispersed campers have permanently left the area by the time rangers discover abandoned campfires, Sanchez says.

“Occasionally they come back, or they may have just left the campfire temporarily,” she said. “When that happens, we talk with them and issue them a citation.”

Sanchez says the issue is prevalent in national forests across the country.