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Drwst
Professor Emma boone and
Elizabeth Cartwright
Science 8A
3 May 2019

When somebody sees a huge wildfire a few hundred miles across they get scared; often
they don't know what to do, in shut down in panic or shock. In that case they sit there until
they're told to move and are evacuated before they get caught in the fire themselves. There
needs to be a stop to the man caused uncontrolled fires.

The 4/16 occured in 2018, fire burned over 100 acres of land and cost around 6 million
dollars. The fire has polluted the river worse than any other event on the records. The fire was
catastrophic for local communities, it led to many of the businesses in small towns to close
during the height of their season and evacuate for at least three weeks. The questions becomes
how can we prevent it from occurring?

The Gold King Mine was originally thought to be one of the worst event that happened to
the river in 2015 in terms of polluting and ceasing local commerce. Until the 4/16 fire which
started June first, 2018. This fire was first fought by a resident in the Quicksilver subdivision and
then the fire department joined in the effort; they weren't able to get there in time to be much
help in the case. The fire spread throughout the neighboring countryside that was filled with fuel.

Fires need three things to start. One is oxygen, second is fuel like dead twigs bush trees
anything that can burn, and third a heat source like an ember from the train, cigarette,
lightening, or the sun. these three things must be present to start a fire. In this case, the fuel
dead twigs and brush around the train tracks the heat source was an ember from the train. Pure
oxygen which the high country is known for was ready to do its part. The most plentiful thing that
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a fire needs is fuel, with the hotter summers, beetle kill trees and lack of water there was plenty
of dead debrie waiting to ignite.

The 4/16 fire is now impacting us again as we move into the spring and summer the next
year. The 2018/2019 winter was epic in snowfall, an accumulation up to 12 feet of snow. All of
this is now melting and the off streams are collecting debris and acidic ash from the fire and is
now flowing down into bigger creeks that lead to tributes to the Animas River. “Hermosa creek
was one of the cleanest waters outside of a preserved area or national park and was recognized
by president Obama.“ states the Durango Herald. However, it is now threatening the Animas
river of the highest pollution on record. Durango water keeper Marcel Gaztambide said, “the
river is more polluted than ever, even more polluted than the Gold King spill in 2015.” The fire
caused a type of oil to occur and this oil is not allowing the ground to soak up the water. This
makes a larger problem. The ground isn't taking the water so tree and plants are getting enough
hydration and the water flows down to nearby streams and creeks collecting anything that it can
while going downstream. This collection is all the debris that was left by the fire ash downed tree
sticks brush. Any turn-up ground is getting turn free from the earth and added to the onslaught
of things going to the river, causing erosion. All of this is affecting the river life. Lots of the fish
in the river started to float up and go the banks for everybody to see and smell. The pH of the
river has changed creating an inhabitable area for plants and river animals
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Butch Knowlton said that they are “digging irrigation ditches along the underside of the
burn scar. This will help direct some of the spring runoff and rain from entering the river. This is
becoming a major priority to the La Plata County emergency office.” Channeling the water so
it's not collecting everything in the way will help a every little bit. But it is still leading to the
Animas in the end. If we could find a place that could have mass flooding it would help
re-nourish the soil there but it also is less pollution to the river of Durango. People are building
berms and barriers to help direct the water elsewhere. While this is a good idea a lot of people
are known to be lazy or forgetful or simply don't have the resources to complete the tasks
needed to help the environment. This means that even though this is a great idea at least half of
the people that were affected by the mudslide and such won't do anything to help prevent
another one. While the other half have already done this is convenience because of their
houses and property were destroyed. With those who did build water directions, a third of them
will built incorrectly or in the wrong area, due to lack of education. This is a factor that has to be
accounted for as well. This is why you should hire a personal landscaping company to do it for
you or to help consult.

Another thing that people will find is material damage directly related to their house,
becoming costly. The fire can cause smoke damage that takes redoing everything in the house
including drywall, floors, etc anything that is laying outside the walls will often need to be
replaced. This can cost up to well over $140,000. So you might as well just remodel your house
during the process.

Fire is an issue that is under thought and not taken care of properly. We can do things to
help reduce man made and natural fire start-ups. Such as , fire mitigation, burning dead things
that are on your land and clearing an area around your house, a defensible space. We can also
find ways to help protect yourself from the aftermath of it by building berms and drainages to
prevent and direct mudslides/ watershed. We can eliminate the danger of fires but they still
need to happen as they are a major part of the ecosystem. Fires nourishes the ground and get
rid of many dead things or over populated things (like beetles, thistles, etc) that are preventing
plants and trees to grow in those spots.
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Work cited

CLIMATE 101: WILDFIRES, Natural geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfires/

One Less Spark One Less Wildfire, ready for wildfire.org,copyrite 2017,
http://www.readyforwildfire.org/Prevent-Wildfire/

List of colorado wildfires, wikipedia, wikipedia, 3 of october 2018 , 4/29/2019,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colorado_wildfires#List_of_fires

Fire Effected on Soil, ​Forest Encyclopedia Network​, goggle,

http://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/frsl.htm

Continued 416 Fire water quality monitoring results from Hermosa Creek and Animas River,
Mountain studies,