A hot time in Leadville...

I'm sitting in a conference room on the Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, CO waiting for a Town Hall meeting to start. This morning my wife and I participated in Lake County's wildfire evacuation drill. We have a cabin in the area and thought we'd be good citizens and help out the folks who'd potentially come to our aid if a wildfire did rear it's ugly head up in this neck of the woods.

It was a dry winter at 10,000 feet and there have already been some small spot fires but according to local fire officials even those early small fires have been demonstrating fire behaviors not usually seen until late July and August.

Fire is of course a natural occurrence. The problem is that more frequent smaller fires have been suppressed for too long allowing for the fuel supply (trees and brush) to build up to dangerous levels.  Based on the turn out of agencies participating in the drill they take the potential of fire very, very seriously and appear well prepared (as well prepared as is possible...) but nature, and fire specifically, knows no real master so all of us involved in today's exercise can only wait and hope that the real deal never occurs. Yet we are left with the realization that it perhaps is not so much a question of if, but when.