As the Alexander Mountain Fire grew to more than 6,700 acres Wednesday, crews continued to fight the blaze from the ground and sky, with the promise of a Complex Incident Management Team coming Thursday to assume control.
The move will raise the level of importance of the Alexander Mountain Fire over other large wildfires burning in the western U.S., "because that’s really what we’re competing with right now in terms of personnel and crews," according to Camille Stevens-Rumann, a former wildland firefighter and associate professor in CSU's Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship.
"We have lots of large fires that most crews are already assigned to, so having that designation of a Type 1 team basically opens up more of those limited resources to be allocated here," she said.
At the point of her interview with the Coloradoan, Stevens-Rumann said the Alexander Mountain Fire was being fought with a range of aerial assets and around 242 personnel as of early Wednesday, including four 20-person crews, 30 engines and a couple of helicopters dedicated to fighting the growing fire west of Loveland. The cause and origin of the fire remain unknown.
Live updates:Alexander Mountain Fire at 6,781 acres
“Those crews are building line, they’re protecting structures. You know, we’re dealing with a landscape that has a lot of wildland urban interface, so there’s lots of homes and values at risk on the human side," she added. "The first task was evacuations and getting people safely out of that landscape, and then it’s human infrastructure and starting to build those containment lines.”
What's fueling the Alexander Mountain Fire
Containment lines can be human-cut, with firefighters digging in the soil, cutting down trees and removing brush, needles or litter that could become fire fuel. Lines can also be dozed in with bulldozers or dropped in by planes via fire retardant and then maintained on the ground, Stevens-Rumann said.
Since it was first reported late Monday morning, the Alexander Mountain Fire has grown to6,781 acreswith 0% containment as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Its growth has been aided by hot, dry weather and fueled by vegetation that grew during last year's near-record to record precipitation but later dried out into essentially kindling, Assistant State Climatologist Becky Bolinger wrote on X Tuesday.
“This fire could exhibit extreme behavior and be very difficult to manage,’’ Bolinger wrote. “Our one saving grace is that we don’t have winds in the forecast. But I don’t think this fire is going away soon.’’
As someone who studies wildfires and how plant communities respond to and rebound from them, Stevens-Rumann said she often thinks of this growth and burn cycle.
"When I go hiking with non-fire people, and they go, ‘Oh, look at all the wildflowers,’ I look at them like, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of fuel for that next fire,'" she said.
Alexander Mountain Fire:How you can help
“More scientifically, if it’s dry all the time, we don’t have the fuel growth rate, so we’re less likely to have a fire," Stevens-Rumann said. However, because of Northern Colorado's wet conditions and vegetation growth last year, the area has plenty of fuels like dry grasses and shrubs, "ready to burn now," she added.
"When we look at the current statistics and see that it’s 0% contained — even as we have 240 people on that fire and people actively working on it — that’s one of the things that’s really hard to feel confident that you have a strong line built when you have these really dry conditions, but lots of potential fuel that could burn around them.”
What's next for firefighting efforts
While the Alexander Mountain Fire continued to move down the Big Thompson Canyon Wednesday, its rocky and steep terrain doesn't give the fire much fuel and it was "backing down" as of late Wednesday morning, incident commander Mike Smith said during a briefing. Engines and crews were staying in the area Wednesday to make sure structures are secure and that winds don't cause any spot fires on the south side of U.S. Highway 34, Smith said.
The Big Thompson Canyon, like other mountain canyons, is steep with several quick changes in vegetation, going from grass "and maybe a few trees in (the) canyon bottom to potentially pretty dense forests at the top," Stevens-Rumann said. "It’s not just the terrain in terms of the elevational gradient, but also a change in burnable conditions as you move up in elevation.”
More:Colorado's 20 largest wildfires happened this century. Here's how things are changing.
While crews were still actively fighting the fire on the west and east sides Wednesday, Smith said he's hopeful the burn scars from the Bobcat Ridge and Cameron Peak fires will keep the Alexander Mountain Fire from marching further north.
Unlike the wind-driven Cameron Peak and East Troublesome Fires of 2020, the Alexander Mountain Fire also wasn't facing the high variability of high winds early Wednesday.
“Fires are really unpredictable, especially when they become wind-driven," Stevens-Rumann said. "Right now the winds aren't pointing toward town, so that’s a positive, but that can change and can become a possibility.”
