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Nov. 2—Rocky Mountain National Park fire managers announced Wednesday that they plan on beginning pile-burning operations on both sides of the park.
The piles are in a variety of locations including areas near Allenspark, Lily Lake, west of Deer Mountain, near Moraine Park Campground, in the Willow Park area off Old Fall River Road and on the west side of the park along US Highway 34/Trail Ridge Road near the Green Mountain and Coyote Valley Trailheads.
Burns could start in early November and continue through April as weather permits.
Fire managers plan to take advantage of any upcoming wet or winter weather conditions by burning piles of slash generated from several fuels-reduction projects and hazard tree removals. Park fire crews and contractors have cut and piled the slash over the last two years, and it is now dry enough to burn.
The fuels-reduction projects are designed to reduce significant accumulations of forest fuels that can generate detrimental fire behavior adjacent to wildland. By reducing the potential fire behavior, the wildland fire risk to firefighters and the public drastically dwindles.
In the past, previous hazard fuels projects considerably assisted in stopping the fire from jumping to popular spots like Bear Lake Road and Trail Ridge Road.
Although the potential fire risk is greatly reduced by fuel reduction projects in the area, these projects are not guaranteed to hold a wildfire in the worst of conditions nor are they a stand-alone defense against wildfires. For questions about this project or information about Rocky Mountain National Park, call the park's Information Office at 970-586-1206 or visit www.nps.gov/romo.
