Colorado could be in for a some large fires this summer. The snotel data shows that the snow is melting off a month earlier, and precipitation is about 2/3s of normal. If summer and late spring rains are below normal, then a big fire year is possible. The 2007 fires in central Idaho which burned over 800,000 acres had the same weather scenario, but without the vast amount of beetle kill that I’ve seen pictures of in Colorado.
Colorado could be in for a some large fires this summer. The snotel data shows that the snow is melting off a month earlier, and precipitation is about 2/3s of normal. If summer and late spring rains are below normal, then a big fire year is possible. The 2007 fires in central Idaho which burned over 800,000 acres had the same weather scenario, but without the vast amount of beetle kill that I’ve seen pictures of in Colorado.
I was with an associate yesterday who said that a campground that had 18 feet of snow last Memorial Day is bare ground now.