The cost of fighting the Cameron Peak Fire, burning for nearly 100 days, is estimated at $130 million to date. Of that, Larimer County is expecting to pay about $5.8 million.
“These are estimates,” said Larimer County Undersheriff John Manago. “I wish I could tell you to the penny, but this is our best estimate of where we think we will be.”
The Cameron Peak Fire started near Chambers Lake west of Fort Collins on Aug. 13 and has burned 208,913 acres, destroyed 425 structures and affected more than 140 miles of trail.
While it is considered 92% contained and the number of crew members fighting the blaze has dropped from a high near 2,000 to 380, suppression efforts are underway, meaning the overall costs to fight the fire still could grow.
With a major wildfire like the Cameron Peak — the largest fire in Colorado history — federal, state and local crews work together to fight the fire with different levels of crews taking command of the efforts. All of those costs are lumped into one overall price for suppression, which was estimated at $130 million, according to figures Manago received from the overhead team that is managing firefighting efforts.
But who pays those bills? That depends on where the fire is burning, whether it is on U.S. Forest Service land or on private land within the county. Most of the Cameron Peak Fire, 83.4%, burned on Forest Service land, so the federal agency will be responsible for that amount of the cost, Manago said.
The remaining 13.6% falls to Larimer County and the state of Colorado, Manago explained. The county pays for that percentage of the costs during the time that it was in control of the fire, while the state will pay that piece for the time the county passed control to the state. Together, they will cover 13.6% of the final cost.
The county’s responsibility is from Aug. 13 through Sept. 6 and from Nov. 13 until the fight is complete. The state will pay from Sept. 7 through Nov. 12, when it was in control of the effort.
These costs are just for fighting the fire; they do not include recovery costs nor do they take into account the total amount of losses in terms of destroyed structures and property.
Larimer County has set aside $9 million to cover short- and long-term recovery costs, which is about the same amount spent on recovery in the months and years after the 2012 High Park Fire, which overlapped with recovery from the 2013 floods.
The High Park Fire, which burned for three weeks and destroyed 259 homes, cost about $38 million for suppression, according to figures reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Larimer County’s share of the firefighting costs for High Park Fire was $7.9 million, according to Manago.
Plus there will be costs for those whose property burned, including the Shambhala Mountain Center with 17 damaged structures, private property owners and the U.S. Forest Service.
Katie Donahue, district ranger for the Canyon Lakes Ranger District, said in a recent online meeting that many Forest Service facilities including restrooms, campgrounds and bathrooms burned. Plus, the fire resulted in burned trees that, because they could fall, are a safety hazard and need to be removed, including many along the 140 miles of trails on U.S. Forest Service land in the burned area.
Repair work will begin as soon as possible, said Donahue, and will take time to complete.
“We are not going to magically be able to open all the trails as soon as we call this fire contained,” Donahue said in the online meeting Wednesday. “There’s going to be a lot of work put into repairs at trailheads and facilities. … A lot of work is going to have to be done to infrastructure and removing trees.”
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Cost of fighting Cameron Peak Fire estimated at $130 million - Loveland Reporter-Herald
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