Fire
The Sylvan Fire burning in Eagle County, CO, home to Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas, has tripled in size to 1,424 acres, since starting on Sunday afternoon. Lightning is suspected as the cause.
The fire is currently twelve miles south of Eagle, CO, and half a mile southwest of Sylvan Lake State Park. The state park has been closed due to the fire.
The fire is about fourteen miles south-west of Beaver Creek ski area, and twenty miles from Vail Resort.
Firefighters are making progress securing fireline on the east and west sides of the Sylvan Fire, which is burning 16 miles south of Eagle, Colo.
The fire has burned 1,424 acres since it was reported Sunday afternoon. The fire is burning in timber on the White River National Forest about half a mile from Sylvan Lake State Park. The cause is under investigation but lightning is suspected.
About 75 personnel are assigned to the fire along with a light and heavy helicopter. Monday a heavy air tanker and four single-engine air-tankers dropped retardant to help stop the fire’s spread.
The White River National Forest has issued a closure order for the area around the Sylvan Fire for public and firefighter safety. A map of the closure is available in the map section. The closure includes the 400 (Eagle-Thomasville Road, the area south of Sylvan Lake, the Hardscrabble area, the FS 416 Road between Crooked Creek Pass and the Peter Estin Hut, and the FS 514 Red Table Mountain Road from Cottonwood Pass to Lime Park.
If you’ve ever lived in Colorado you’d recognize the massive swaths of dead trees and overgrown forest. This is the result of 100 years of forest mis-management. The entire state is a tinder box and has been for decades. The stage is set for a ripper. You can blame it on the 2 degree increase in temps. You might be partially right. But 100 years of humans trying to stop a forest that has already adapted to millions of years of fires is the culprit. Keep banging your false drum. Fixing climate change would not solve the wild fire problem in the West.
Fully agree, as I live in Northern California, and the same problem of forest mismanagement has greatly enhanced the huge wildfires that occurred there. Look at Paradise, Sonoma and Napa Counties, and just north of Fresno by Shaver and Huntington Lakes. Proper forest management is a must to prevent tragedies.
It’s so cool that problems are not complex and only have one cause and one solution. Just awesome!