Colorado county urges citizen calm ahead of prescribed burns on Marshall Mesa
The Boulder County Office of Fire Management will likely be conducting prescribed burns in the area around Marshall Mesa on Tuesday morning. The burns are for research purposes in the pursuit of figuring out the most effective means of fuel management and mitigation in the foothills area.
The goal of a forewarning was to help residents of the area, many of whom were living in the area during the Marshall Fire, not thinking that they would be living through another disaster.
"It was so unusual to get fire this high up, and yeah, it would, I think, people would be concerned," said Terry Corcoran, who lived in Superior at the time of the wildfire.
"We're looking at conducting several small scale prescribed burns," added Seth McKinney, who works for Boulder County. "They are all research related."
Weather will be a determining factor for whether the OFM decides to move forward on Tuesday morning. If the winds, for instance, are too much to properly handle even small spot fires, then, they will scrap the operation. But if the weather is agreeable, they'll put fire to ground and will have a couple of additional fire trucks to cover any potential question marks.
"We have additional resources in place," McKinney said. "Everything set up before we put fire on the ground to mitigate all the hazards we can."
There are some questions within the community, especially considering the timing. The research requires that similar conditions to the Marshall Fire be present -- the cold, some degree of wind and relative humidity conditions -- in order to be able to get the right data to help for the future. But there is still the possibility that someone might not have seen the announcement and be concerned about possible smoke in the Marshall Mesa area. Boulder County says not to call 911 for smoke in this area tomorrow.
"Right before the holidays when all of this happened before -- kinda topical!" joked Cara Corcoran, Terry's daughter, who also lived in the area at the time of the fire.
"We're absolutely empathetic to that," McKinney said. "One of our long-standing goals with prescribed fires is to normalize smoke in the air. Normalize prescribed fires, and that it's OK."
