Berthoud firefighter Shane Prim is leading a team checking on structures throughout the night in the path of the Cameron Peak Fire as well as in areas that have already burned.
“We’re mitigating what we can around structures, getting a good eye on what’s happening,” Prim said just before his shift on Tuesday, his fourth night on the fire. “The fuel model is extra hard to deal with. We’ve got heavy timber, the dead and down from beetle kill. When the fire is on the ground, it’s throwing sparks. It’s going crazy. It’s in very steep, rugged terrain. It’s hard to get to.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Prim and his team are working near the Pingree Park campus, along Colo. 14 and in areas along Laramie River Road, which he described as impassable due to fallen trees. The three firefighters are among 393 who are battling the fire that sparked west of Fort Collins on Thursday.
Seven helicopters were fighting the fire from above, while crews on the ground were protecting structures and working to find safe areas to stop the fire.
Because of the terrain and extreme fire behavior, they cannot attack it or build a line near the perimeter and instead are looking for areas in the path of the fire with roads, rocks, changes in vegetation and other features where they can safely create a break to stop the raging flames.
Protecting structures and assets
And they are focusing on protecting homes, cabins, campgrounds and other structures. Deputy Incident Chief Jared Hohn said crews will work their hardest to save all “value assets” as long as they can do so safely.
“There is no difference between a house and a camper,” Hohn said in an Tuesday evening online briefing. “It still holds value for an individual. What we look at is: Can we protect that safely? If we can’t protect it safely, it’s not worth a life.”
Crews are deploying pumps and sprinklers around houses, in some cases, attaching sprinklers to fences and poles to provide a water protection stream if and when needed, according to fire commanders. They may remove vegetation around homes to make them more defendable, they may be stationed at a home, and they patrol areas to check different structures.
Prim and his team patrol the areas at night, adding to what the day crews have done to protect structures. He said they also check on structures that survived in already burned areas, making sure that a spark or a hot area does not rekindle and kick back up.
“We’re making sure it’s buttoned up, things are looking good, and we don’t have any sparks coming in,” Prim said, “just keeping an eye that things don’t change, because everything is changing.”
A challenging day ahead
The Cameron Peak Fire grew to just over 14,000 acres on Tuesday, and though it is still 4 miles away, Rocky Mountain National Park closed several remote areas in the northwest section due to the fire, including trails, cross-country travel zones and 20 wilderness campsites.
Stronger winds on Tuesday cleared out much of the smoke over the fire, but that also caused more fire growth, particularly to the south and southwest, explained Darren Clabo, meteorologist with the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team.
“Fire likes to feed on sunshine,” Clabo said. “Once that smoke cleared out, the fire was able to feed off the sunshine.”
The forecast for Wednesday has fire managers worried, according to Clabo, who described hot temperatures, winds up to 20 mph and dry thunderstorms without much rain but with “a lot of lightning that’s going to hit dry fuels and has the potential to start new ignitions all over the place.”
He continued, “It’s going to be a challenging day for us on the fire, but we’re watching the situation closely, and we’re hoping we’ll get more precipitation than expected.”
Winds are expected to continue from the north, which is pushing the fire to the south away from neighborhoods and higher risk areas, according to Clabo and other fire incident managers.
The fire, which is at zero containment, has spread rapidly due to the steep, rugged and dry terrain, and fueled by the weather. Prim, a wildland firefighter for 17 years, said he hasn’t seen fire behavior like this in “quite some time.” He described it as very active and “crazy” and difficult to battle.
“You can feel it from a mile away,” he described. “When it’s up in the canopy running, you can be a mile away and feel it. The noise, it sounds like you’re right behind a 747 jet engine taking off. It creates its own wind. You can feel the wind coming off it. It’s definitely a different feeling.”
Crews are dealing with weather and terrain, with a lot of dry, beetle-killed forest area, with narrow canyon roads and with wildlife.
“We have had some encounters with different wildlife, bear, elk, deer,” said Hohn. “They still have their babies with them, so they’re still somewhat protective.”
Members of the fire management team said they expect to be working the Cameron Peak Fire for several weeks, hitting areas where they can safely control the fire, trying to guide it around structures in areas they cannot and working to protect firefighters, residents and properties as the flames rage.
“We’re definitely doing a lot with structure stuff,” Prim said, “because the fire is going to have to get bigger before it gets better.”
Rocky Mountain National Park
Closures: Mummy Pass, Commanche Peak, Mirror Lake, Poudre River, Colorado River, Red Mountain, Skeleton Gulch, Thunder Pass and Little Yellowstone trails; Holzwarth Historic Site; 20 wilderness campsites; and the Cascade Creek, Cache La Poudre, South Cache La Poudre, Hague Creek and Mosquito Creek cross-country travel zones.
Open areas: While much of the national park is still open, park officials advise people to plan ahead, know the weather and wind forecast and always let someone know where they will be and when they will return. Park visitors are reminded to watch for columns of smoke and hazy skies, to avoid canyons and areas where there is a lot of dense, dry vegetation and avoid being at the top of a ridge with fire burning below. “Wildfire can move rapidly in the right conditions, faster than a person can run,” according to a press release from the national park.
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Weather to be ‘challenging’ on Cameron Peak Fire on Wednesday - Loveland Reporter-Herald
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