Largest wildfires in Colorado’s history
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Colorado is fighting its largest wildfire in history. Other massive blazes are close behind.Three of the four largest fires in Colorado history have ignited since July. Vox , By Umair Irfan Oct 22, 2020 The Cameron Peak Fire near Rocky Mountain National Park has become the largest wildfire in Colorado history, growing to almost 207,000 acres this week. The fire was 55 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon.
It was quickly joined this week by the East Troublesome Fire to its southwest. Over a period of 24 hours, the East Troublesome Fire grew six times in size to more than 125,000 acres as of Thursday. The blaze, which is burning at an elevation of 9,000 feet and across both sides of the continental divide, forced Rocky Mountain National Park to close. It’s now the fourth-largest fire in Colorado history. ……………
What’s fueling Colorado’s fires this yearIt’s an increasingly familiar story. Like the epic wildfires this year across California, Oregon, and Washington, the wildfires in Colorado arose amid a year of extreme heat and dryness. Heat waves baked the state this summer and persisted into the fall. The high temperatures increased the evaporation of moisture from vegetation, leaving plants dry and ready to burn. There was also less rainfall. Over the past month, precipitation was less than 10 percent of what is typical. “By the end of September, nearly 100% of the state was experiencing some level of drought, up from 51% since the beginning of the calendar year,” according to the Colorado Climate Center’s Monthly State of the Climate report. The state is on track to have its second-driest year on record……….
r, humans have been making fire risks worse. That’s in part due to climate change, which is changing weather patterns and driving some of the aridity in Colorado’s forests. “Our 2020 wildfire season is showing us that climate change is here and now in Colorado,” said Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab and an associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, in an email. “Warming is setting the stage for a lot of burning across an extended fire season.”…………. https://www.vox.com/2020/10/19/21522994/cameron-peak-calwood-colorado-wildfire-fire-record-east-troublesome-lefthand-canyon
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