Crews are managing but not fighting a 415-acre fire burning 8 miles north of Grand Junction, hoping the flames clear out decades of overgrowth impeding the food supply for wild horses.
Called the Cosgrove fire, the blaze is burning in the remote Little Bookcliffs Wilderness Study Area, which has decades of unabated pinyon juniper growth that has pushed out wild grasses and sage brush that are important foods for wild horses and other wildlife, authorities said.
Lightning started the fire Sunday.
Crews are pushing the fire away from the area’s famous wild horse herd, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
The fire is so remote it takes three hours to reach from Grand Junction on rough, single lane backroads. The U.S. Forest Service characterized the burn area as “high, rugged remote canyons, ridgelines and high mesas.”
Smoke is “highly visible” from Grand Junction, the Forest Service stated.
Supplies for firefighters are taken in by 4-wheel-drive trucks once a day, according to Upper Colorado Interagency Fire Management.
“Fighting a fire means attempting to contain it and put it out,” the regional firefighting task force stated this afternoon.
“Fire management on the other hand utilizes fire as a tool to clear out heavy underbrush and dangerous fuel loads to allow nature to get back into ‘balance.'”
Warm, windy weather provided steady burning today, as water drops from helicopters helped manage the fire.
The Little Bookcliffs Wilderness Study Area includes 26,525 acres of public lands dissected by four major canyon systems, the Main, Coal, Cottonwood and Spring canyons.
The Bureau of Land Management classifies it as a wild horse range.
