The Dinosaur Fire that started west of NCAR was contained before it burned five acres. Boulder County fire officials credit subdued winds, favorable daytime conditions and the absence of other fires. But they warn that such luck may not hold as fire season ramps up this year and in the years to come.
“Is the next fire going to catch us in a moment when we’re kind of vulnerable?” said Brian Oliver, the City of Boulder’s wildland fire chief. “There are just so many factors that complicate firefighting on the Front Range,”
It was 100 degrees with a relative humidity near zero when the Dinosaur Fire began late morning on July 12. This put Boulder County fire districts at a high response level according to the county’s new “indices-based response.” The higher the fire danger, the more resources an initial smoke call gets. At least eight different fire districts attacked the Dinosaur Fire, along with air support from Rocky Mountain Municipal Airport.
Luckily, the wind was on firefighters’ side. Rather than a gale pushing the fire toward homes — like in the 2021 NCAR Fire that forced the evacuation of thousands of residents — a breeze steered it into Green Mountain.
If another fire had been burning at the same time as the Dinosaur Fire, or if it had ignited later, the story could have been very different. Oliver noted that if the fire had started at 8 p.m., when it was dark, aviation support would not have been available.
“That’s a super dangerous place to go at night, and we probably wouldn’t be able to engage too many firefighters until daylight,” he said of the NCAR area. “So that thing would have kind of grown unchecked until we could find a safe place to engage.”
Not only is air support impossible at night, as it is during violent winds, evacuations also become more difficult. People are sleeping and may not receive emergency alerts, and once awake, chaotic traffic becomes harder to direct and navigate.
A study from CU Boulder’s Earth Lab found that night fires increased in intensity between 2003 and 2020 due to climate change, which decreases the cooling effect of evenings. According to Greg Schwab, chief of Boulder Rural Fire Rescue, nighttime usually brings cool dampness that increases moisture levels in grasses and shrubs, slowing a fire’s spread. As Boulder becomes hotter and drier, this natural fire break could peter out.
“If it stays hot all the way through midnight,” Schwab said, “we don’t get that recovery.”
Just as nighttime darkness makes it difficult, if not impossible, to attack fires with gusto, so does another fire burning at the same time. No other major fire was burning when the Dinosaur Fire started, so Boulder County’s fire agencies were able to focus a broad swath of resources on a single burn. This made the situation less desperate than it could have been. When multiple fires are burning, the need to stop a fire fast becomes essential, Schwab said, because there’s not much backup available.
“If there are other big fires on the Front Range that are doing a big resource draw, then we really can’t afford to have one escape on us,” Schwab said.
Another growing concern is the firefighters themselves — their numbers and work capacity. As federal agencies like the Forest Service struggle to retain experienced wildland firefighters, Schwab said a growing concern in Boulder is the availability of volunteers for the dozen or so fire districts that need them. While six full-time fire districts cover many of Boulder County’s day-to-day calls, volunteers play a key role when larger fires start. Several volunteer-based fire protection districts responded to the Dinosaur Fire, including Lefthand, Boulder Mountain and Fourmile.
“Recruitment and retention in Boulder County — with it’s high, high cost of living — is incredibly difficult for the volunteer or western agencies,” Schwab said, adding that the county’s aging population also plays a role.
Boulder’s high housing costs push firefighters farther out
It’s not just the volunteers who are affected by Boulder’s high cost of housing. Schwab said few of his full-time employees live in the county, with many living more than an hour away. Those are the firefighters who are called into work when a fire starts, and a longer commute makes a difference.
“When I had to call people in on Friday [July 12], I’m calling them in from Littleton, from Wellington, from Aurora,” Schwab said. “And that’s a no notice ‘stop what you’re doing and get to work.’”
Even after increasing firefighters’ pay by 50% over the last five years, Schwab said his staff still don’t make enough to live in Boulder County, though they make too much to qualify for affordable housing.
“Next year it’s going to be more expensive to live here and fight fire here than it ever has,” Schwab said. “And it’ll be worse the year after that.”
Once they navigate an hour or more of traffic to reach a fire, extreme heat will likely make future fires more difficult for local firefighters. It was 100 degrees on the day of the Dinosaur Fire, and while it’s always hot next to flames, Zach Valentiner, a captain and wildland fire coordinator with Boulder Rural, said the heat makes a hard job harder, meaning every firefighter is less effective.
“The hotter, drier conditions are creating a need for more firefighters to be able to give those rest opportunities to the ones who are working in those extreme conditions,” Valentiner said.
Maximizing limited resources requires coordination. Valentiner said the county’s fire districts are working better together than ever, recognizing that mutual aid benefits everyone — a fire not stopped in one jurisdiction can quickly spread to others. Yet he emphasized the need for continued coordination before emergencies to prepare for a situation not as lucky as the Dinosaur Fire.
“We’ve done a really good job at adapting the way we respond and working better together for the one big emergency,” Valentiner said. “Now we need to work towards handling multiple at the same time.”
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