The United States Department of Agriculture — the USDA, the federal agency that includes the U.S. Forest Service and that oversees the 1.8 million-acre San Juan National Forest — announced yesterday that most of the forest would re-open to the public at 3pm today, Thursday June 21.
Officially, the summer solstice, the first day of summer. Following two recent days of rain.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is also re-opening closed public lands.
The press release came from Acting Public Affairs Officer Cam Hooley, and began:
On Thursday, June 21, at 3pm, the San Juan National Forest (SJNF) will re-open to the public by rescinding the Stage 3 Closure Order that has been in place since June 12. Lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Durango area that closed last week will also reopen. An area around the active 416 and Burro Fires will remain closed to public entry, including the segments of the Colorado Trail from Molas Pass to the Junction Creek terminus. The BLM lands and the rest of the SJNF will remain in Stage 2 fire restrictions.
This allows campgrounds, roads, and trails to re-open, and operations to resume for those with permits and contracts for doing business on the public lands.
You can read the full press release here.
The press release came with a map that showed the areas in and surrounding the 416 Fire and the Burro Fire — both north of Durango — that remain closed to the public and to businesses.
The press release continues:
It may seem like a quick turn-around since last Tuesday [June 12], but both the decisions to close and re-open the SJNF were based on scientific information and a defined set of ten criteria. The criteria include measurable factors such as fuel moistures, Energy Release Component, Burning Index, and Ignition Component. Going into closure, all ten criteria were met or exceeded. Six or less criteria are projected to be met over the next week. Additionally, many out-of-area firefighting resources remain positioned around the area to respond to any new fire starts.
Yes, it does seem like a quick turn-around since last Tuesday. It seems like a very different attitude from what we saw, locally, at several Town Council and Board of County Commissioner meetings in May and June. During those meetings, we heard testimony from Archuleta County Emergency Operation Director Mike Le Roux, explaining at some length the scientific criteria that the federal government was using to put in place, first, Stage One Restrictions… and then Stage Two Restrictions…
It seemed that a really good idea, to the Town Council and Board of County Commissioners, to embrace the federal criteria and come onboard with their own adoption of the same Restrictions in the areas outside the San Juan National Forest. So the Town and County both adopted their own version of Stage One — and then Stage Two — Restrictions.
And then… much to everyone’s dismay… the feds put Stage Three Restrictions in place, and closed the National Forest on June 12.
I can imagine the flak that National Forest officials caught, from businesses and community leaders in Durango and Pagosa Springs, when the forest was closed. The economies of both town depend, to some degree, on tourists visiting the San Juan National Forest. Some of us remember 2002, the last time the National Forest was closed due to fire danger, and the three or four years it then took to fully revive our tourism industry in Pagosa Springs.
At the Town Council meeting on Monday evening, June 18, Mike Le Roux addressed the Council on the subject of instituting Stage Three Restrictions. At previous meetings, a few weeks earlier, Mr. Le Roux had appeared quite confident about the need for tight fire restrictions, especially out in the well-forested private lands in unincorporated Archuleta County, but on Monday evening he sounded almost contrite.
“So about an hour ago, I received a phone call from the Forest Service, indicating that they had spent the day reviewing the current indices based on the recent weather event, and while we didn’t expect that [the weekend rainfall] would do much, it has reduced some of those indices. And so they suggested that I hold off on presenting [the Stage Three Fire Restrictions resolution] at the BOCC meeting tomorrow. So we’ll wait a couple of days on that.
“If anything, and if it does get rescinded this week — potentially — that would mean we’d be back in Stage Two again, so we’ll be back where we were this time last week. So all of the information that you have is still pertinent. And I think, in the event that the forest does open, then we still have all the tourist back out, and the campers. Nothing changes from the Stage Two.”
I personally find it rather fascinating to learn that the federal government could carefully analyze ten scientific criteria concerning forest conditions within a couple of days of a brief rain event. But I’m willing to be surprised.
You can download the Town’s Stage Two Restrictions here. The County’s restrictions are similar… as are the Forest Service restrictions.