Wildland Fires 2026

Bob

Bob

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Cottonwood fire, man caused .... burning from I-15 to Hwy 89, Circleville, Marysville on evac alert. Has burned over Eagle Mt ski area.... It is decimating the Tushar Mtn area. Map is 6/24


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Dang, I used to hike and camp a lot in that area. Hiking up Mount Holly and Delano Peak, watching the Mountain Goats, so sad. The Tushars were always my summer escape from the summer heat in the St. George area.

In 2021, I was camping up there with friends. We constantly smelled some sort of smoke. Took a while to figure out where it was coming from. Some idiots had just tossed still-hot campfire coals on the ground, and everything was smoldering, almost creating a root fire beneath the nearby trees.
We used almost all of our 10-gallon water containers to douse it, but got it out. This was a super close call.
 
Quite a ways... They are to the SE. Fire is burning the other way. Here is the smoke map:

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Three firefighters died fighting the Snyder Fire along the western CO/UT border overnight as that fire merged with several others into an absolute monster. Fruita/Grand Junction are about to get a rocket of smoke for the foreseeable future, unfortunately, while it looks like the northern part of CO is going to get inundated with it, too.

And the Gold Mountain Fire opened up just north of downtown Ouray and forced the closure of US-550 inbetween there and Ridgway.

Scary stuff. 97 yesterday with 8% humidity and 20-30 mph sustained winds all across the state and pretty similar today, no real rain in the forecast for a week, either.

It's about to get really ugly the way it always looked it would when winter simply never arrived.
 
Yep to many to folllow. New starts scattered around AZ as well. I'd suggest to go to app.watchduty.org they are the most up to date.

No info on the deaths yet, but they deployed their shelters which is a last ditch effort....unfortunately.

We have recieved 1 3/4 inches of rain thru the region here....much needed.
 
I know the area pretty well where the Snyder Fire's burning as I did some geology research there (stratigraphy and paleocurrents). Still windy here in W. Colorado. A friend's 75 year old maple came down yesterday right in town (Glenwood Spgs.) We had some big winds that felt like 50 mph or thereabouts. Very sad to hear about the firefighters.

Here's Grand Junction, CO right now

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It's about 7 miles from beef basin and a deep canyon
 
If the maps are accurate, it's about two miles as the crow files from Cathedral Butte, with hot spots popping up outside the perimeter.

babylon fire.jpg
 
Newest map, winds from the SW on this fire.

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If you don't know the area, the raft run on the Colorado through Ruby-Horsethief (canyons) is really nice, you put in at Loma (CO) and take out at Westwater (UT). This stretch can take 2 to 3 days, depending on how you do it. I did it once in high winds and thought we'd never get out.

Well, this is just below the Snyder Fire, and there was a big rescue over the weekend of over 100 rafters and dogs who were all evacuated by train track (on RR vehicles, the train goes through the canyons). Kind of an interesting evacuation. Various news sources are covering it, but I found the r/Colorado thread the most interesting:

It’s 3am and I am currently being evacuated with my family from this fire. We were rafting the river from Loma to Westwater, with the most headwind we’ve ever experienced on this section. We were later told that the fire was started by lightening from a storm we saw the night before, and this morning the wind caused it to expand like crazy. We notice new smoke rising nearby over the canyon walls around mid day. After a brutal all day slough rowing against the wind all day, we landed at our black rock camp maybe around 8pm. Minutes later the sheriff motored up and urged us to leave our boats tied up and evacuate to the train tracks across the river with only what we could carry and wait for the utility trucks to ride down the tracks and pick us up to evacuate along with several dozen other boaters spread out over the whole river section. We got on the train trucks around 11:45pm and were dropped off in Mack around 1am to board busses to Loma and Fruita and now westwater. It was crazy and I am so grateful for the rescue and volunteer folks, everyone was so helpful. Our boats are still tied up near black rock and we were told to wait for the fire to burn out before figuring out how to go back and retrieve them. No joke it’s been a real long day for everyone out there today.
 
Rockskipper said:
If you don't know the area, the raft run on the Colorado through Ruby-Horsethief (canyons) is really nice, you put in at Loma (CO) and take out at Westwater (UT). This stretch can take 2 to 3 days, depending on how you do it. I did it once in high winds and thought we'd never get out.

Well, this is just below the Snyder Fire, and there was a big rescue over the weekend of over 100 rafters and dogs who were all evacuated by train track (on RR vehicles, the train goes through the canyons). Kind of an interesting evacuation. Various news sources are covering it, but I found the r/Colorado thread the most interesting:

It’s 3am and I am currently being evacuated with my family from this fire. We were rafting the river from Loma to Westwater, with the most headwind we’ve ever experienced on this section. We were later told that the fire was started by lightening from a storm we saw the night before, and this morning the wind caused it to expand like crazy. We notice new smoke rising nearby over the canyon walls around mid day. After a brutal all day slough rowing against the wind all day, we landed at our black rock camp maybe around 8pm. Minutes later the sheriff motored up and urged us to leave our boats tied up and evacuate to the train tracks across the river with only what we could carry and wait for the utility trucks to ride down the tracks and pick us up to evacuate along with several dozen other boaters spread out over the whole river section. We got on the train trucks around 11:45pm and were dropped off in Mack around 1am to board busses to Loma and Fruita and now westwater. It was crazy and I am so grateful for the rescue and volunteer folks, everyone was so helpful. Our boats are still tied up near black rock and we were told to wait for the fire to burn out before figuring out how to go back and retrieve them. No joke it’s been a real long day for everyone out there today.
Click to expand...
I saw a bunch of Instagram posts from people in the middle of this. Really wild stuff!
 
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