Firefighters make headway on Gold Mountain Fire containment
As of production time yesterday evening at 5 p.m., the Gold Mountain Fire was burning across 31,000 acres, and firefighters had reached 8% containment. Officials shared some good news earlier in the afternoon—firefighters were making headway on strategic firing operations. To carry out a firing operation, firefighters cut away vegetation to make a line of bare soil ahead of a fire and then burn the vegetation between that line and the actively burning fire front. This essentially manipulates the fire to create a wider fireline but can be difficult to execute, especially in the rugged terrain of the Gold Mountain Fire. An announcement stated that strategic firing operations were to start on the northwest portion of the Gold Mountain Fire. Hopefully, the operation will consume fuel between the firelines and the main fire at a slower, controlled pace. But officials have also reminded residents that, much like previous planned firing operations, an increase in total fire acreage is anticipated. Containment is dynamic and is based on the amount of the fire perimeter that has been secured. As the total acres burned increase, the containment percentage may stay the same or even decrease, even as firefighters continue to make progress securing the perimeter of the fire.
The official Gold Mountain Fire Facebook page also posted an answer to a question residents may be asking: Why don't water and retardant drops put the fire out?
The post says that, despite what many believe, water or retardant dropped on wildfires does not fully put them out. Water or retardant can be used to cool areas to slow the progression of a fire while ground crews work to build or strengthen firelines. Simply dropping retardant or water on a wildfire does not suppress it.
The fuel type in the Gold Mountain Fire is mainly timber. According to the statement, water may not even reach the ground to cool a timber-burning fire. Additionally, when water is dropped above an active wildfire, the heat from the fire can cause quick evaporation or even turn the water to steam.
And a common misperception is that retardant can easily put a fire out when, in reality, retardant just causes the fuel, or vegetation, to burn less easily. This allows firefighters to remove vegetation and create a fireline.
The Gold Mountain Fire is mostly on rough and steep terrain, where it’s not safe to send firefighters. So using water or retardant drops in those areas would not be a successful tactic, since they really only work to help tame fires so crews can put in effective firelines.
Water and retardant drops have reportedly been successful in conjunction with ground resources on the west side of the fire in the Highway 550 corridor.
El Niño climate phenomenon will shape the rest of this fire season
The already strong El Niño is strengthening, a trend with potentially significant implications for the intense—and now tragic—fire season. During El Niño, equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures are above normal. There are global effects, and in the American West, they are geographically varied. Climatologist Abby Frazier says they often bring more moisture to the Southwest, which can reduce fire risk in the short term: "A little bit further north and inland, El Niño is likely going to bring drier, warmer conditions…Putting that into potential fire danger, drier and warmer may lead to more wildfire risk."
The Mountain West News Bureau’s Murphy Woodhouse brings us the story.
Following Pride debacle, Mayor Michael Badagliacco decides that City Council will no longer read any proclamations
The Montrose City Council meeting on Tuesday evening was consequential and, at times, quite tense. In June, KVNF reported that City Council voted not to read this year’s Pride proclamation, which had been read in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride Month by the council the previous two years. Residents took over an hour during public comment to speak out against the decision at the following meeting. Council members J. David Reed and Dave Frank also expressed their disappointment with their fellow council members’ decision.
Then came a surprise at this week’s meeting. Executive Director of Montrose Pride, Evelyn Greenman-Baird, addressed the council. They said, “Now it seems—please correct me if this is inaccurate—it seems that this council has decided the simplest way to avoid that conversation again is to stop reading proclamations altogether. Not just ours—anyone's now. ... We'll be watching quietly over the next few months, and if a proclamation gets read for anyone, for anything, before this term is over, we'll understand what your decision was really about. And I hope we're wrong.”
Councilmember J. David Reed, who has previously expressed his support for the proclamation and for the LGBTQ community, was confused by the statement. He told Greenman-Baird, "Perhaps you may know more than I know, because I am not aware of any policy discussions or action, or otherwise, to not have proclamations going forward."
Greenman-Baird was right. City Attorney Chris Dowsey told Reed that "it is the purview of the mayor regarding issuing proclamations. The mayor has decided that there will be no proclamations going forward."
Reed was not pleased that he was hearing about this for the first time during the meeting. He said it was "outrageous" and "unforgivable" that Badagliacco failed to inform at least one member of the council and that he learned about the decision from a citizen. He also said, "I think it's a terrible decision on his part, quite frankly," and then apologized to Greenman-Baird on behalf of the council. He concluded, "If there was something I could do about it, I would."
The council then moved on to a discussion about fixing a typo in the city budget that resulted in the Montrose Development and Revitalization Team, also known as DART, losing nearly all of its funding. The city voted to approve the fix after a testy conversation.
The council also voted down a Citizens Charter Review Commission. That commission would have been made up of Montrose residents who would examine the city charter and present potential amendments to City Council.
