Wildfire Season Briefing: 'We're Bringing New Tools To The Fight'
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (CBS4) - State and federal wildlife managers shared their expectations for this year's wildfire potential and said this year will be different.
"This year we're bringing some new tools to the fight," said Division of Fire Protection and Control Paul Cooke during the briefing on Friday morning.
This year is expected to be average or hopefully below average, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. But while that sounds good, that doesn't mean there won't be any fires.
Last year was a relatively calm year with approximately 3,700 fires, many of which were small, burning about 23,000 acres in Colorado.
Recent rain on the Front Range is keeping wildfire danger down significantly, but dry conditions on the Western Slope in many areas have officials worried.
Officials say they are now targeting June and July for wildfires to pick up.
What's really moving Colorado forward in the battle against dangerous wildfires is the state's new airfleet equipped with a high-tech camera underneath.
"It's from military technology," said Division of Fire Protection and Control spokesman Mike Frary. "Finding fires from the air from a lot higher altitude than we've done in the past."
The camera can even see through smoke.
"We can go out behind a band of lightning and identify fire starts and let the jurisdictional authority know, 'You have a new fire start, it's in this field, this is the rate of speed,' what not," said Cooke.
Gov. John Hickenlooper said in Friday morning's briefing at Centennial Airport that the aircraft will be vital not just in the wildland urban interface but throughout the state because of the technology they employ.
He thinks the aircraft should keep the state from seeing the massively destructive fires of 2012 and 2013.
"Two multi-mission aircraft, not to mention many more helicopters and other assets that we can use to try to get to those fires early. Right when they're first starting. In many, many cases if you can get to the fire early enough you have a much higher probability of getting it out before it does significant damage," Hickenlooper said.
The planes can stay in the air around five hours. The state is trying to keep 98 percent of fires at less than 10 acres.
"It's shaping up to look like a year like last. We're looking to have an average fire season or even slightly below average because we're getting some good moisture this year," said Cooke. "We'll still see 30 large fires, we'll still see 100,000 acres of forest destroyed by fire."
The wildfire danger in Colorado is currently rated as low to moderate across the state with a very small portion of southwestern Colorado listed as high.
Wildfire Resources
- Visit CBSDenver.com's Living With Wildfire section.
Wildfire Photo Galleries
- See images from the most destructive wildfires (Black Forest, Waldo Canyon, High Park and Fourmile) and largest wildfire (Hayman) in Colorado history.
