A 60-acre fire at Rocky Mountain National Park could protect Estes Park for nearly a decade
More than 60 acres of some of Rocky Mountain National Park's most heavily trafficked terrain was set aflame intentionally Tuesday, as firefighters worked a prescribed burn. The burn took place between the popular Beaver Meadows Visitor Center and the Beaver Meadows entrance to the park.
There, dozens of firefighters from several agencies joined together to help protect the park and nearby town of Estes Park from future wildfire. CBS Colorado was taken to the front lines of the fire to see how firefighters safely conducted the prescribed burn.
"We are trying to reenact the natural process of wildfire, how it was historically throughout the area," explained Nathan Hallam, fuel specialist at RMNP.
Hallam also served as the lead firefighter for the prescribed burn, known as the "burn boss." He said the 60-acre burn was a small part of a more than 1,800 acre area the park wants to burn in the next five years. However, getting that large of a project done on federal land is not easy.
"There is a lot that goes into it," Hallam said.
Much of the work that goes into the prescribed burn comes in the process of planning. Some of the work on the 1,800 acres has already been completed from burns done at the end of 2024.
Before Tuesday's burn was started, there was a visual line that could be seen near the entrance of the park. The south side was greener and had shorter shrubbery. The other side of the line had visibly dry grasses and shrubs in abundance, with taller grass that is more likely to carry wildfire.
The goal of the event was to burn the dry grass and shrubs as much as possible without burning many trees.
However, the whole purpose of the park is to preserve and protect the natural lands for human enjoyment, animal habitat as well as vegetation. Because of that, there is a lot of planning that takes place to make sure the park is still largely safe for all three of those.
"We need to make sure we don't have any sensitive (wildlife) species that could be threatened or could be harmed by the prescribed burn we are doing out here," Hallam said. "We have sensitive species that grow among the vegetation, and this is a great time of the year for burning before it starts to grow and green."
Conditions have to be perfect for a burn like the one that was completed. Firefighters coordinated with the National Weather Service to make sure winds are strong enough to ventilate the smoke while simultaneously light enough to not push the fire into the community of Estes Park.
RMNP officials said, once complete, the prescribed burns will likely protect the land for the next five to 10 years, meaning they can then turn their focus to other regions of the park.
Hallam noted that it was prescribed burns just like this one that helped save Estes Park from devastation in 2020 when the East Troublesome Fire entered the park and headed toward the community, before stopping at a burn line.
"This essentially creates a buffer from a wildfire moving into the community of Estes Park," Hallam said.
