The Archuleta County CWPP is now ready for public review and comment. You can download the plan here… and you can submit your comments online here.
Wildfire Adapted and the San Juan Headwaters group presented a draft of the new CWPP to the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners at their Tuesday, January 6 work session. A BOCC approval is expected later in January. The current protocol from the Colorado State Forest Service recommends having the BOCC approve the document, which will help support grant applications in the near future.< From the draft plan: Recent development of properties and rural subdivisions throughout Archuleta County has expanded dramatically. The areas adjoining public lands are becoming increasingly valued for their scenic beauty, solitude, and access to recreation opportunities. As development in these areas continues to increase, the risk to lives, property, and resources correspondingly increases.
For the purposes of the CWPP, the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. It is the line, area or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels. Archuleta County defines the WUI as an area where development and a landscape with wildfire potential meet. Due to observed ember spread behavior, the WUI boundary extends 2 miles out from the developed area. Nearly all developed areas in Archuleta County are considered within the WUI.
The risk of wildland fire occurrence in Archuleta County is very high. Historic records of fire origins indicate starts occur every year. June through August have the highest frequency of starts, most caused by lightning. Multiple starts in 24-to-48-hour periods are common during these months. During years of low winter/spring moisture, the threat of human-caused fire starts becomes critical by June. All these factors combined cannot be ignored.
Most of the development in Archuleta County has occurred in ponderosa pine forests, with a Gamble oak understory. Subdivisions have also been built in mixed-conifer forest and pinon/juniper. These forest types have natural fire regimes of frequent to periodic fire. The natural historic fire regime of ponderosa pine is frequent, low-severity fire. Historically, pre-1880 ponderosa pine forests burned every 5 to 15 years on average. Typical fires were surface fires that cleaned up the forest floor and kept forest structure open and park-like, with minimal to few ladder fuels.
After over a century of fire suppression, open park-like forests have filled in and are now dense, closed canopy forests where ladder fuels threaten crown fires every season. Gambel oak, one of the most common native ladder fuels, grows and spreads rapidly across much of the county in elevations below the high elevation spruce/fir forests.
We will never be able to stop wildfire ignitions. We are not capable of extinguishing every wildfire. History has shown that we may not want to stop all fires. Wildfire has been Mother Nature’s way of cleaning the forest, keeping it healthy and less prone to catastrophic wildfire. If we choose to live in wildfire prone areas, it is our responsibility to learn how to minimize our risks and live with the inevitability of wildfire. We need to become a Fire Adapted Community.
The CWPP Goals and Strategies were developed to help achieve this. Comments and suggestions from the public are welcome through SanJuanHeadwaters.org