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Wildfires In New Mexico, Colorado, Utah Could Be Start Of A Busy Season

The 416 Fire near Durango, Colo., on June 2.
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The 416 Fire near Durango, Colo., on June 2.

Wildfire season is ramping up in the region. Fire teams are now working to quash one outside Durango, Colorado, and Utah recently stopped another. That state is now doing prescribed burns to reduce the chance of a bigger blaze.

This fire season, we’re following people involved in fighting wildfires behind the scenes, from scientists to cooks. One of them, Makoto Moore, has already been dispatched.

Usually, Moore is based in Pueblo, Colorado, where he’s a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But over the weekend, he got a call: They needed him to head south, to a wildfire across the border in New Mexico.

A thousand people had been evacuated from the area around Ute Park.

“I thought it was bad in my neck of the woods. And down here, they’ve received even less precipitation, less snowfall,” says Moore. “This entire area is dry.”

Moore is now working to set up portable weather stations to monitor how changes in wind and rain could affect the fire.

Others are blazing in the region, too, like one outside Durango, Colorado called the 416 Fire.

“It may be a busy season,” says Moore. “Everything is kind of pointing towards that. We’ll still have to wait and see.”

The blaze near Durango is expected to continue burning in coming days. Firefighters are now working to protect homes in the area.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado. 

Copyright 2021 KUNC. To see more, visit KUNC.

Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She first came to NPR in 2013 as a Kroc fellow and has since reported Web and radio stories on biomedical research, global health, and basic science. She won a 2016 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. After graduating from Yale University, she spent two years in Helsinki, Finland, as a freelance reporter and Fulbright grantee.
Rae Ellen Bichell
I cover the Rocky Mountain West, with a focus on land and water management, growth in the expanding west, issues facing the rural west, and western culture and heritage. I joined KUNC in January 2018 as part of a new regional collaboration between stations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Please send along your thoughts/ideas/questions!
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