Undated photo of the Cameron Peak Fire burning in Larimer County.
BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) – The U.S. Forest Service has closed hundreds of thousands of acres in Colorado as wildfires continue to burn across the state.
2020 has become one of the worst fire years on record for Colorado. The year has seen two wildfires break an 18-year-old record to become the first and second-largest in state history (Cameron Peak and Pine Gulch), a single wildfire surpassing 200,000 acres for the first time in state history (Cameron Peak), and large wildfires breaking out unusually late in the year. The Colorado Sun, using data from the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center, created a chart that shows more wildfires have broken out this year than any other in the last 20 (the chart doesn’t show before 2000), though 2002 still tops 2020 for acreage burned — for now, at least.
As a preventative measure, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday that it was temporarily closing national forest land in Clear Creek, Jefferson, Gilpin, Boulder, and Larimer counties. The closure went into effect at midnight Wednesday.
Violators could face up to $5,000 in fines and six months in prison.
“It became clear to us that this was the path that we needed to take and we do not take it lightly,” Reid Armstrong, a public affairs specialist for the Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests, told sister station CBS Denver. “We are in extreme drought conditions right now and what we need is enough snow and enough moisture to really change those small fine fuels.”
The Forest Service hopes the move will help firefighters battle current wildfires — and stop any new ones from sparking.
Source: https://www.kktv.com/2020/10/21/440000-acres-of-forest-land-closed-as-fires-rage-in-colorado/
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