Photo credit: Mike Blakeman
In 2013, the largest fire in Southwestern Colorado’s history — 109,615 acres at final measurement — burned a mix of spruce fir and aspen forest on three sides of what has been my high mountain meadow home for 25 years. The fire raged for more than a month, running seven horizontal miles along a hillside in one afternoon alone. We were on standby to evacuate for two solid weeks, and although all of my neighbors on both sides were evacuated, I was not. At the closest, the West Fork Fire came within half a mile of my property.
For weeks of no rain and daily red flag warnings, the containment number stayed at 0%, as the fire continued to eat up forest, as the indefatigable firefighters, who at one point outnumbered the residents of the county by three to one...