# Rio Grande Box Canyon Burning



## lmyers (Jun 10, 2008)

It is smokey to the point of being unpleasant in the Ark Valley now, and almost all of it is coming from the West Fork Fire Complex, which now includes a large blaze south and west of Creede. In fact this fire is now burning the Rio Grande Box Canyon class III run. It's burning the Weminuche Wilderness. These last couple fire seasons fucking suck. We need rain.

Here's a map of the fire:

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/map/3436/0/

and here's a picture of what's being burned, it appears from the map to have went all the way to the river and jumped the canyon:


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## ranamafana (Jul 18, 2005)

I can imagine how smoky it must be over there. Here in Pagosa the prevailing winds have taken most of the smoke North & East, with the exception of morning inversions. But the pyrocumulus & smoke clouds are incredible in the afternoons & at night the flames on the distant ridges look huge, because they are. Crazy fire season, I sure hope monsoons come early this year. The fire was over 70,000 acres (total complex of the 3 fires) this morning, & it was hot, dry & really windy for most of today. Pray for rain.


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## Phil U. (Feb 7, 2009)

Bows his head...


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## ranamafana (Jul 18, 2005)

here are a couple pics of the fire cloud on 6/21 & then 6/22, it looks like summer storm clouds, but it's not. Notice the 2 plumes in the 2nd pic, the one to the left is from the Papoose fire near Creede, the one on the right is from the West fork fire.


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## cadster (May 1, 2005)

The green forest in the photo is misleading.The majority of the trees along the wilderness box paddle have been killed by beetles.

Maybe the forest fire will lead to a faster regeneration of the forest if the heat isn't too intense. Although the smoke plumes would seem to indicate otherwise.


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## Phil U. (Feb 7, 2009)

cadster said:


> The green forest in the photo is misleading.The majority of the trees along the wilderness box paddle have been killed by beetles.
> 
> Maybe the forest fire will lead to a faster regeneration of the forest if the heat isn't too intense. Although the smoke plumes would seem to indicate otherwise.


Yeah. That is one of those valleys where you say if this ever burns, oh man!


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## lmyers (Jun 10, 2008)

cadster said:


> The green forest in the photo is misleading.The majority of the trees along the wilderness box paddle have been killed by beetles.
> 
> Maybe the forest fire will lead to a faster regeneration of the forest if the heat isn't too intense. Although the smoke plumes would seem to indicate otherwise.


You are right Bruce, that picture is about 6 years old. I couldn't find the one I took 2 years ago that shows that entire forest was dead..... however, I don't share in your hope of a fast regeneration. That was a very old, and very thick forest. I find it very doubtful that it will regenerate significantly in our lifetimes.

The sky was a foreboding shade of red last night in Buena Vista...


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## yetigonecrazy (May 23, 2005)

this was from the update this morning....


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