Crews burn 10 acres at Bear Creek Lake Park on purpose

Crews are setting fires at Bear Creek Lake Park in Jefferson County this week on purpose. It's all part of a plan to learn how to investigate fires with real hands-on experience.  

West Metro Fire Rescue spent Tuesday and Wednesday setting fires for the wildfire investigation class. Students spend the first and last day of the class in the classroom and three days in the field, practicing hands-on investigation work in freshly burned plots. 

As part of the real world examples of fires, firefighters set a number of small fires in the park using different methods of ignition. 

West Metro Fire Rescue said the number of wildfire investigators in Colorado is minimal so it's important to train more people on how to identify those fires.

"Any fire, anytime that starts anywhere, the origin and cause determination which is our investigation portion, is the responsibility of the fire chief of that jurisdiction. The fire chiefs of those jurisdictions are obviously very busy doing their thing so they delegate their responsibility down to us," said one West Metro Fire Rescue firefighter. 

Copter4 flew over the area on Tuesday as crews were burning and extinguishing some grassy areas. If you see smoke in the area, it's expected- at least this week.