Over a year after the smoke was in the air from the Weber Fire, most Montezuma County residents have probably forgotten about the intense fire that burned all of Menefee Mountain east of Mancos last summer. For the residents of the Weber Fire burn area, this year's monsoons have brought torrents of rain and silt down the mountain, washing out roads and hay crops.
While it is easy to become complacent when there are clouds instead of smoke in the sky, once you have been impacted by a wildfire, your life and your property will be forever changed.
I have had the privilege of working with dozens of residents who were affected by the Weber Fire last summer. Many of them felt like the recovery was progressing, especially before the monsoons started. Oak brush and other shrubs and forbs have started coming back on most of the blackened hillsides. Trees have been planted, fences have been rebuilt, irrigation ditches have been dug out and then dug out again.
A couple of high-intensity storms in late July have shown just how much further the ecosystem has to go to start retaining moisture again. A lack of public funding has meant that some of the areas where quick-germinating seed may have helped absorb the rain on top of the mountain will go unseeded.
All of the private homes lie around the base of the mountain, and most homes are fortunately out of the paths of the mudflow. There is little a property owner can do at the base of a watershed to slow down a torrent of water. The residents farther down Weber and East canyons have said they have seen the worst floodwaters yet.
One of the residents whose home was well south of the fire but gets his access washed out each time it rains, told me that another tent washed by with the storms a couple of weeks ago. The nice grassy bridge of BLM land in the middle of East Canyon is not a safe place to camp this time of year! It turns into a river each time it rains. While residents around the base of Menefee Mountain continue to repair their roads and driveways, and the folks at the end of Weber Canyon watch more tents float by it, is a good time to think about what would happen to your house, not only during a wildfire, but after a wildfire.
Consider the roads in and out of your house. Do you have deep ditches and clear culverts that can handle excessive flows? If you are putting in a new culvert, make sure it is wide enough for a fire engine to turn into your driveway.
Do you have fields or fences that might get totally wiped out by runoff if the hillsides burned near your home? You can create contoured ditches that will increase absorption before or after a fire.
Do the waters that come through your property cross private or public lands? Work with your neighbors to slow down the water before it becomes an unstoppable force.
Because a wildfire in your neighborhood is just the beginning of a long recovery process, find out more about how to protect your home, your forest, and your neighborhood from wildfires today at www.southwestcoloradofires.org or by calling yours truly at 564-4007.
Rebecca Samulski is wildfire prevention and education specialist for the Montezuma County Fire Chiefs Association and Montezuma Chapter coordinator for FireWise of Southwest Colorado.
