4 JULY 30-AUGUST 5, 2026 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Happy Birthday, Colorful Colorado THE STATE’S 150TH IS UP IN FLAMES. WHAT WILL 200 LOOK LIKE? BY HANNAH METZGER When the South Canyon fi re burned in 1994, it was called a “hellfi re,” an unprecedented nightmare that would forever change Colorado. The spark started with a lightning strike outside Glenwood Springs. After a few days of minor growth, winds suddenly picked up on July 6, sending a wall of fl ames racing to- ward the wildland fi refi ghters on scene. Over 2,100 acres were burned, and 14 fi refi ghters were killed in the inferno. “I remember thinking that day, ‘I hope to God we never see this kind of loss [again],’” recalls Mike Morgan, a then-fi refi ghter with the nearby Rifl e Fire Protection District. “I couldn’t believe how big that fi re got that fast. ... Fast forward to 2020.” In the decades since the South Canyon fi re, Colorado has been repeatedly devastated by blazes 100 times larger. In 2020, the Cameron Peak fi re burned over 208,000 acres in the northern foothills, the East Troublesome fi re burned nearly 194,000 acres around Grand County, and the Pine Gulch fire burned 139,000 acres in Mesa and Garfi eld coun- ties. The Marshall fi re sparked the following year, burning 1,084 homes in Boulder County, making it the most de- structive wildfire in state history. Six of the state’s 10 largest wildfi res have happened in the last six years. Two of them are actively burning today: the Aspen Acres fire at just under 102,000 acres in southern Colo- rado, and the Ferris fi re at nearly 65,000 acres outside of Dolores as of July 27. The Snyder fi re near the Utah bor- der is smaller at 30,000 acres, but four federal fi refi ghters have been killed while battling the ongoing blaze. “You can’t even compare the condi- tions and fire be- haviors that we’re experiencing now to what we were experi- encing 30 years ago,” says Morgan, who to- day is director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control. “And they continue to progressively get worse.” Wildfi res scorched almost 2.1 million acres across Colorado from 2016 through 2025, a nearly 50% increase from the prior decade, according to annual reports from the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. Wildfi res are four times larger and three times more frequent in the western United States than they were in the 1990s, according to a 2022 study by Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. Climate change is a key driver, resulting in increased heat and extended drought. “Is this the new norm? The answer is yes,” says Camille Stevens-Rumann, director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. “We’re not going into a time of less fi re glob- ally. The climate conditions of the 2020 fi re season are the norm for fi re seasons in the next decade.” The 2026 fi re season is on track to become Colorado’s worst since the record devastation of 2020. So far this year, fl ames have con- sumed over 270,000 acres. That’s more than all of Colorado’s wildfi res between 2021 and 2024 combined, the Denver Post reported. This fi re season comes amid a statewide drought on the heels of a record-breaking hot, dry winter, which experts predict will happen more frequently in the coming de- cades due to climate change. By the 2050s, snowpack droughts like this past winter’s will occur more than three of every 10 years, and nearly nine of every 10 years by the 2090s, according to NEWS continued on page 6 KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS The Aspen Acres fi re sparked on June 29 and is 66% contained as of July 27. GARY MOBBS/ASPEN ACRES INCIDENT MANAGEMENT TEAM
