YOUR AD HERE »

Controlled burn at Summit County Public Shooting Range sets hillside ablaze in effort to reduce wildfire risk

The prescribed burn at the shooting range near Keystone was reportedly the first broadcast burn conducted in Summit County in at least 25 years

News News |

  

A firefighter lights vegatation ablaze during a prescribed burn Wednesday, April 24, 2024, near the Summit County Public Shooting Range.
Matt Benedict/Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District

Firefighters lit the hillside above the Summit County Public Shooting Range ablaze Wednesday, April 24, in a type of controlled burn operation not conducted in the county in decades.

More than one wildfire has sparked at the shooting range in recent years. So, the prescribed burn, known as a broadcast burn, aims to reduce the risk of another wildfire starting from shooting at the range in the future, U.S. Forest Service Dillon District Ranger Adam Bianchi explained.

“It’s a tool we haven’t really been able to use,” Bianchi said of broadcast burns. “We want to show that fire can be good for the landscape. If this is positive, we can do more of these.”

Firefighters head up the hill to begin a prescribed burn at the Summit County Public Shooting Range on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Most of hillside above the firefighters was scorched in the 44-acre prescribed burn in an effort to tamp down wildfire risk in the area.
Ryan Spencer/Summit Daily News

As many as 1,700 shooters a month use the public shooting range in the summer, according to a news release from the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit, which consists of personnel from the White River National Forest and Bureau of Land Management.

While tracer rounds and exploding targets are not allowed at the shooting range, responsible shooting with standard ammunition has previously sparked wildfires at the range, the release states. 

One such wildfire occurred at the range in 2021. Another wildfire happened there in 2016 when a Denver man fired explosive tracer rounds that ignited the 22-acre Frey Gulch Fire. The man who started the Frey Gulch Fire later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor arson and was ordered to pay $53,000 in restitution for the damage the fire caused.

White River National Forest public affairs officer David Boyd noted the public shooting range provides a designated place where people can shoot responsibility in a safe, controlled environment but that the risk of a wildfire is still present.

“Regular shooting, especially when conditions are dry with a lot of dry grass, a ricochet off a rock could spark something,” Boyd said. “This aims to help mitigate that risk. We like that there’s a really good place for people to shoot.”

A broadcast burn is a prescribed burn that burns across the landscape, as opposed to pile burns, which are more commonly conducted in Summit County and involve burning debris that has been stacked into slash piles, Boyd said. A broadcast burn has not been conducted in Summit County since at least 1996, he added.

For any kind of prescribed burns, there is usually only a narrow window when conditions are right to conduct the burn, Boyd said. The weather has to be good not only for lighting the fire but for smoke dispersal, and the vegetation can’t be green yet but the ground can’t be too dry either, he said.

Conditions aligned this week, and on Wednesday morning, about 40 firefighters circled up at the shotgun range for an operations briefing ahead of the broadcast burn. Burn boss John Markalunas led the briefing, during which the firefighters reviewed the terrain, burn objectives, safety precautions and the weather forecast.

“(The fire) shouldn’t move real fast,” Markalunas said. “But the rate of spread on that hill is real important because you don’t move real fast on the hill either.”

Show CaptionsHide Captions

Around 10 a.m., firefighters started lighting fires along the top of the hillside. Ignition crew members lit the fires while crew members worked to make sure the fire was contained to the area where it was supposed to burn, Boyd said. Firefighters reportedly dug containment lines around the perimeter of the burn last year.

By noon Wednesday, smoke was pouring over the hillside as the ignition crew worked its way down the slope toward the shooting range. The active burn wrapped up around 3 p.m., but smoke from the site may be visible through Thursday, Boyd said.

The Summit County Public Shooting Range is scheduled to remain closed through the end of the day Thursday so firefighters can safely access and monitor the area. Personnel from multiple agencies assisted with the controlled burn including Summit Fire & EMS Fire District, Red White & Blue Fire District, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and Vail Fire & Emergency Services.

Calling the prescribed burn a success, Bianchi said that he hopes this broadcast burn becomes a recurring operation that will be conducted every few years when the vegetation returns at the shooting range.

“This is a tool that hasn’t been used here, and it should be,” Bianchi said. “We want to introduce fire back into the landscape when it should be. … We look at this as the start of a great opportunity to build upon something we can do more of across the county.”

Crime and Public Safety
See more
Trending - News
See more

Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.