Colorado state experts predict potentially devastating wildfire season

ENGLEWOOD - Friday's news from the governor and state wildland fire experts came as no surprise: Colorado faces a potentially devastating wildfire season.

Possibly, officials said, the worst since two of the state's most destructive - the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire, which burned 347 homes in Colorado Springs and killed two residents; and the 2013 Black Forest fire, which destroyed 489 homes and killed two people.

"With 63 percent of normal snowpack in southeast Colorado and into the headwaters of the Arkansas River drainage, there's heightened fire awareness," Gov. John Hickenlooper said at an annual wildfire outlook briefing at Centennial Airport in Englewood.

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Although small storms have moved through Colorado in recent weeks, two years of abnormally dry winters, combined with changing weather conditions and pine beetle kill, have created a disturbing scenario, officials said.

Statewide, snowpack levels are 70 percent of normal. The northern part of the state is faring better, with the North Platte region at 102 percent of normal.

"But there's fire risk in every part of the state," Hickenlooper said. "It's hard to predict where you'll have a fire."

Hickenlooper said he's confident that the state has allocated adequate funding. Following the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires, Colorado lawmakers added $12 million to the general fund, he said, with state funding increasing by 60 percent over three years. In addition, more money has been funneled toward emergency response for initial attacks.

The first level of response is free to local communities, he said, to "ensure every sheriff and fire chief knows we'll take care of all the cost at first."

Colorado's fire season has been relatively mild for the past five years.

"We haven't had one of those nightmare fire seasons since we started making these investments - it's like buying insurance," Hickenlooper said. "We have to anticipate it."

Colorado is one of the only states to have Air Force firefighting forces at its call, Hickenlooper said, to respond within the first hour of the initial start of a fire.

Agencies including the state and national forest services, the Bureau of Land Management and local jurisdictions are ready to work together, Morgan said.

"We live in the most beautiful state in the nation, and we have to do our part to protect that and the quality of life we enjoy," he said.

Credit: Debbie Kelley