暗黑爆料 Brief
A seasonal break from wildfires is disappearing in the West.
A fire in northern Colorado last weekend forced thousands of evacuations less than three months after that area鈥檚 last major blaze.
The NCAR fire, which started near Boulder on Saturday, came within a few hundred yards of homes at one point. There were even still snow patches on the ground, but the fire just burned around them.
Local crews were fast to respond and keep it from burning down homes or injuring residents. But it reminded many that just a few months ago, the Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes.
Brian Oliver, an incident commander working on the latest fire around Boulder, gave a on Monday.
鈥淚t鈥檚 March, this isn鈥檛 fire season, per se, and we just had a 200-acre fire. So really the concern is any time there鈥檚 not snow, it鈥檚 fire,鈥� he said.
Instead of fire seasons, experts say we now just have fire years.
鈥淗istorically, we really wouldn鈥檛 see a lot of large, extreme fire activity year-round,鈥� said Jessica Gardetto. She鈥檚 a spokesperson with the National Interagency Wildfire Center, which coordinates firefighting agencies and fire information.
鈥淏ut now in the West, especially in some states like Colorado, we鈥檙e seeing these large, threatening wildfires that are occurring in January, sometimes around Christmas, which was historically just not possible.鈥�
Gardetto added that the vast majority of the wildfires are human-caused, so even when spring camping or recreating, use extreme caution.
Meteorologists drought and warmer weather persisting around the West this spring. Wildfire also show areas of New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming having higher-than-average wildfire risks over the next few months.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau is provided in part by the .
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