Here is some interesting information on wildfires in Colorado:
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dfpc.colorado.gov
Colorado's Fire History Facts
20 of 20 largest wildfires have occurred in the last 20 years (since 2001)
16 of the top 20 largest wildfires wildfires have occurred in the last 13 years (since 2008)
15 of top 20 largest wildfires have occurred in the last 9 years (since 2012)
11 of top 20 largest wildfires have occurred in the last 5 years (since 2016)
9 of top 20 largest wildfires have occurred in the last 3 years (2018 and 2020)
4 of top 5 largest wildfires have occurred in the last 3 years (2018 and 2020)
Colorado's Largest Fires by Acreage
| Rank | Fire | Acres | Year |
|---|
| 1 | Cameron Peak | 208,913 | 2020 |
| 2 | East Troublesome | 193,812 | 2020 |
| 3 | Pine Gulch | 139,007 | 2020 |
| 4 | Hayman | 137,760 | 2002 |
| 5 | Spring Creek | 108,045 | 2018 |
| 6 | High Park | 87,284 | 2012 |
| 7 | Missionary Ridge | 70,285 | 2002 |
| 8 | West Fork | 58,570 | 2013 |
| 9 | 416 | 54,129 | 2018 |
| 10 | Papoose | 49,628 | 2013 |
| 11 | Bridger | 25,800 | 2008 |
| 12 | Last Chance | 45,000 | 2012 |
| 13 | Bear Springs | 44,662 | 2011 |
| 14 | MM 117 | 42,795 | 2018 |
| 15 | Beaver Creek | 28,380 | 2016 |
| 16 | Bull Draw | 36,549 | 2018 |
| 17 | Badger Hole* | 33,421 | 2018 |
| 18 | Grizzly Creek | 32,631 | 2020 |
| 19 | Logan | 32,546 | 2020 |
| 20 | Burn Canyon | 31,300 | 2002 |
*Note: Fires that burned in multiple states
I’m going to push back on you fire guys. My perspective is my local environment in SW Colorado, and our local range/forest management practices over the last 40 years.
Can any of you establish a direct relationship between fires and long-term declines in mule deer populations? Me and everyone else understands that there will be short-term impacts as the feed recovers. And I hate to see wildfires in June knowing the babies are hitting the ground, and I understand the range will be especially vulnerable to invasive species post-fire. But I see this narrative and statistical shell game with wildfire data as a red herring. As pointed out by bess, all fires aren’t the same.
So, we have a lot of fires here (some on that list), and pretty much all of them on the forest are managed as prescribed burns so the rangeland habitat is IMPROVED. The fires around the farms and homes are fought aggressively, and I’m grateful for that. But unless you get around this state, you just can’t understand how many hundreds of thousands of acres of beetle kill there is. Most of it will never burn.
It helps to reflect on what’s happened over the last 40 years, and the results of the multi-use doctrine. For those of you who don’t recall, this doctrine eliminated or severely curtailed some consumptive uses such as logging and grazing on public lands. Ironic, I know. An entire generation is confused about what “multi” means.
So for the next 40 years our laissez-faire forest management approach gave us a big old tinderbox. As much as I hate cows on public lands, they were at least doing the job the 100,000 deer and elk that should have been doing it couldn’t.
All it takes is a few campfires, tourist trains, psycho forest service employees, jewish space lazers, and idiots with their bbq’s in the middle of 1000’s of McMansions before you get “the most devastating fires in history“. Well duh.
But it plays well with the global warming crowd, and I suppose we’ll eventually get around to the argument of that killing the deer anyway.
The good news is that the USFS has seemingly shifted policies back toward a more saws-on management approach . Logging activity has ramped way up, something you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t frequent the area. There weren’t any press releases. But that doesnt mean history isn’t being rewritten by the truth being twisted to advance a narrative.
I remember hunting the clear-cuts here back in the ‘90’s. The number of deer you would see was ORDERS of magnitude greater. Maybe they’re all just hiding in the trees now?
This problem has been solved dozens of times here. But if we need to do it again, I vote for 2 hours with some old timers and adult beverages over another academic grant.
