Earlier this week, firefighters and forestry technicians set fire to some of Rocky Mountain National Park’s most visited terrain.
More than 60 acres of the park — within the popular Beaver Meadows entrance and visitor center — was set aflame as part of a prescribed burn.
Prescribed burns are planned fires that are often utilized to manage vegetation, restore natural woodlands, or to research a given area, according to the National Park Service.
In order to move ahead with a planned fire like this, the park must complete a fire management plan and a prescribed burn plan. The fire must also meet all conditions identified in a go/no-go checklist before ignition, NPS explains.
The prescribed fire at RMNP this week was part of a larger 1,800-acre area in the park that the NPS hopes to burn within the next five years. The objective of these fires is to protect the park and the nearby town of Estes Park from future wildfires.
“We are trying to reenact the natural process of wildfire, how it was historically throughout the area,” Nathan Hallam, fuel specialist at RMNP, told CBS Colorado. “There’s a lot that goes into it.”
As reported by CBS Colorado, the south side of the Beaver Meadows entrance was greener and had shorter shrubbery. The other side was home to visibly dry grasses and abundant shrubs. Taller grass like that is more likely to carry wildfire, experts say.
Dozens of firefighters from various agencies work together to burn the dry grass and shrubs without burning many trees.
Mikayla Moors is a former forestry technician and park ranger in Colorado who recently lost her job in a round of funding cuts and layoffs by the Trump administration.
She said that her experiences as both a ranger and forestry technician gave her a “deeper appreciation” for land management operations and the “hard work it takes to keep the places we love open.”
“These kinds of burns are important because when conditions are favorable, fuels like grasses and low shrubs are removed, as well as naturally raising the crown base height of trees,” she told Good Good Good.
“This helps decrease the likelihood that a future wildfire would move into the canopies of trees, like we saw with the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak fires in 2020.”
Hallam also noted that prescribed burns like this one have already helped save Estes Park from devastation during the aforementioned fires. When the East Troublesome Fire entered the park nearly five years ago, it stopped at a burn line that was created by a previous prescribed burn.
RMNP officials told CBS that, once complete, the prescribed burns in the full 1,800-acre area will likely protect the land “for the next five to 10 years.”
“Prescribed burns help keep our forests and parks resistant to wildfire and help the ecosystems thrive,” Moors added. “In turn, it keeps our communities safe by creating a sort of a buffer zone.”
These efforts, Moors said, are vital for park lovers and visitors to be aware of, especially in the face of uncertainty for park funding and proposed logging in national forests, as outlined by the Trump administration.
“While I am not a firefighter, I think it’s important for regular people to stay informed and support the important work being done,” Moors told Good Good Good. “You would not believe how many people it takes to keep things operational, especially with the level of visitation our parks and forests are seeing.”
Moors said recent staffing cuts have put a strain on an already overworked workforce. Although this prescribed burn was a success, she hopes it serves as an example for the vital services that happen across national parks and public lands every day.
“Parks and forests have been chronically understaffed for many years,” Moors added. “We need to be adding jobs — not taking them away — for your enjoyment of your public lands, so they can be there, unimpaired, for your children’s children and beyond.”
Header image courtesy of NPS Photos
