The Pagosa Ranger District is planning prescribed fire operations on Thursday, Oct. 8, pending all required approvals and favorable environmental conditions.
This project is located 6 miles south of Pagosa Springs on the top of Eight Mile Mesa between the communities along County Road 335/Lower Blanco and Loma Linda. Fire managers will be targeting roughly 250 acres of the total 579 acres available in the project area.
Smoke will be visible from U.S. 160, U.S. 84, downtown Pagosa Springs, Loma Linda and County Road 335/Lower Blanco.
This fuels reduction work is immediately adjacent to two subdivisions and is a critical step in protecting lives and property from unwanted fire in a landscape prone to lightning-caused wildfires.
The Eight Mile Prescribed Fire will build upon mastication work funded by the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) completed in 2022, as well as thinning work from 2023. These efforts on the mesa top complement critical defensible space work on adjacent private lands being implemented by partners including Wildfire Adapted Partnership and San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership, as well as others.
While the summer was hot and dry, fall has brought cooler temperatures, higher relative humidity and significant rainfall. Prescribed fires are often implemented on the cusp of wildfire season to effectively consume the targeted vegetation. We use prescribed fires to help reduce overgrown vegetation to help protect local communities, infrastructure and natural resources from wildfires. The forests in Southwest Colorado are part of a fire-adapted ecosystem, which has historically experienced frequent, low-intensity fires on a large scale. Prescribed fire replicates that fire regime under controlled conditions.
Prescribed fire smoke may affect your health. For more information, visit cdphe.colorado.gov/apcd/wood-
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