Heavy afternoon rains interfered with cleanup and rehabilitation efforts along the Ferris Fire last week, forcing crews to intermittently pause work to avoid lightning strikes and to prevent damage to muddy areas with heavy equipment.
“It has delayed our progress off and on somewhat significantly,” San Juan National Forest spokesperson Lorena Williams said Monday. “Last week in particular, every single afternoon, there were heavy downpours.”
Williams said the fire area experienced pockets of flash flooding with waters carrying debris adjacent to the Bradfield Campground southwest of the fire. She said crews assessing conditions near the fire area following Sunday’s storm hadn’t logged any catastrophic damage of culverts and roadways as of Monday afternoon.
But this week, as the likelihood of thunderstorms dwindles to 20% to 30% over the fire area, crews hope for drier weather. Now that the Ferris Fire is 97% contained, they are focused on repairing land impacted by firefighting efforts.
Williams said drier weather will assist crews in chipping operations, removing road hazards like fire-damaged trees and creating water diversions to prevent flooding.
“You think of a road grader trying to repair a road in the pouring rain, and it's doing more damage than good,” Williams said.
National Weather Service forecaster Gillian Felton said the threat of rain could last until Thursday and potentially into the weekend. The high-pressure system over Southwest Colorado is keeping storms overhead for longer, Felton added.
“Winds outside of the convective thunderstorm activity have been on the calmer side. ... It’s keeping these storms from moving very fast,” Felton said.
On the bright side, last week’s rain helped extinguish hot spots in the fire area. San Juan Team 8, the incident team managing fire suppression repair efforts, is anticipating an infrared aircraft this week to track remaining hot spots over the fire area. Soil and hydraulic analysts will also arrive to assess fire impacts.
“There are specialized teams that should be showing up later this week for both the Department of Interior and Forest Service to analyze damage to soils, and see if there’s any mitigation work that we need to do in addition to the suppression repair work we’re already doing to protect residents and protect landscapes from flash floods and debris flows and things like that in the future,” Williams said.
On Wednesday, San Juan Team 8 will transfer management of the fire back to the Dolores Ranger District.
“Now, the main focus is, of course, securing the fire edges to reach a level of containment where even if the interior of the fire was smoldering and burning, it wouldn’t be able to threaten fire lines,” Williams said.
avanderveen@the-journal.com
