Bayfield – A fire that destroyed a home in the Pine River Valley on July 2 and mysteriously rekindled nine days later has been investigated for a connection to seeps of natural gas.
A caretaker moved some personal items into the remodeled 3,600-square-foot home July 2. By 10 p.m that night, flames engulfed the house.
“It was completely destroyed,” said Upper Pine Fire Marshal Karola Hanks. “I didn’t even suspect methane at the time. But when the fire rekindled July 11, I started looking.”
On Monday afternoon, she said officials had detected small seeps of methane, the main component of natural gas, around the homesite.
“We’re finding low amounts of methane, 50 to 150 (parts per million), but enough to feed a fire in a home that wasn’t well-ventilated,” Hanks said.
She said she is still uncertain about the source of ignition.
For decades, the pell-mell seeping of natural gas has worried many landowners in the valley and elsewhere in southern La Plata County. The seeps are common along a coal-rich geological formation called the Fruitland Outcrop, which juts to the surface or is very shallow underground along a 50- mile arc that extends into Archuleta County.
The uncontrollable escape of natural gas along the outcrop has been documented since the late 1800s, but several government studies in the 1990s indicated that nearby oil and gas development could have aggravated some natural seeps and created others.
La Plata County’s director of emergency management, Butch Knowlton, said that the consensus of local officials is that seeps can be worsened by ground-disturbing activities – including the industry’s pumping of massive quantities of underground water to depressurize coal beds and extract gas from them.
Oil and gas officials have denied any such relationship.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
