The proposed settlement agreement, announced Monday, mandates that the railroad will pay the sum over the course of 10 years, beginning in July. The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge.

Though both federal and private fire investigators concluded hot cinders spewed by a train sparked the 54,129-acre wildfire in 2018, Durango’s historic railroad continues to deny it caused the 416 fire, and the settlement is not an admission of liability.

The settlement stems from a 2019 lawsuit brought by the federal government as it sought damages from the extensive firefighting effort. The 416 fire, at the time, was the sixth-largest in Colorado history, though 2020’s three historic wildfires surpassed it, .

Federal prosecutors, in the lawsuit, said the 416 fire cost $25 million to extinguish.

“The Durango & Silverton Railroad represents an important historic and cultural icon in southwest Colorado,” U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan said in a news release. “We intend for this settlement to enable the railroad to continue to operate, but in a manner that will avoid causing future catastrophic wildfires. In addition, this agreement ensures fair compensation for the damages caused by the 416 fire.”

Representatives with the railroad could not be reached.

Under the proposed plan, the railroad cannot run its famous coal-burning trains during periods of elevated fire risks. The railroad, over the past several years, has begun converting its fleet to oil-based engines, which don’t spew the type of hot cinders that the government found started the wildfire.

The railroad also must prepare an annual operating and fire prevention plan, which will be submitted to the U.S. Forest Service for review and approval every year.

Other terms of the settlement include:

• The railroad must establish a catastrophic wildfire fund, used to reimburse costs incurred by the federal government responding to wildfires
• The railroad must hire a full-time fire management officer to provide monthly plans and reports
• The railroad must hire an independent consultant to conduct yearly audits and inspections of the railroad’s fire mitigation and prevention measures

The 416 fire sparked around 10 a.m. on June 1, 2018, after a train cast burning cinders while it chugged up Shalona Hill in the San Juan National Forest, fire investigators found.

The embers ignited a brush fire next to the railroad tracks and quickly spread, triggering thousands of evacuations, causing millions of dollars in damage to the local economy and shutting down the San Juan National Forest for the first time in its 113-year history.

Firefighters battled the blaze for two months before it was fully contained at the end of July.

The fire didn’t burn many homes, but torrential rain following the fires sent feet of mud into people’s kitchens and living rooms.

More than two dozen citizens and business owners sued the railroad over damages to their homes, while others said they lost substantial tourism revenue when the train was forced to halt operations that summer.

The suit caused a rift in the Durango community, which owes its existence to the train, which serves as the economic lifeblood for many in town. The legal action created two camps: those who believe the railroad should be held responsible for the fire and those who believe its owners should be forgiven because of all the good the locomotive has brought to the region.

That lawsuit, filed in La Plata County Court, is ongoing.

About 100 firefighters from 10 Denver-area agencies were battling the blaze first reported about  1 p.m. near the Apex trail, Jefferson County sheriff’s spokesman Mike Taplin said. The fire was initially estimated at under an acre, but an aerial survey showed it was roughly 17 acres.

The nearest homes are a mile to half-mile away, but not in danger, Taplin said. Area residents will be notified if that changes, he said.

The weather Saturday was unseasonably warm and there were winds. Denver set a record for the day with a high temperature of 77 degrees, the National Weather Service said.

But Taplin said the winds were dying down Saturday evening and a cold front expected to move into the area should help firefighting efforts.

Containment of the wildfire was estimated at about 25 percent. Taplin said crews know approximately where the fire started, but not what sparked it.

The cautioned people with asthma, heart or lung health problems against going outside while the fire’s burning. If moderate to heavy smoke is visible, the air quality is already unhealthy, a tweet by the agency said.

Jefferson County Open Space said that Apex Park rangers and sheriff’s deputies were at the scene. The park was closed because of muddy conditions.

Our firefighters, working in Division Zulu on the brush fire burning in the foothills west of Golden, near Apex Park in Jefferson County. Fire estimated at 17 acres.

— WestMetroFire (@WestMetroFire)

The Decker Fire near Salida was declared 100% contained Thursday, a milestone that came after snow fell across the fire.

Fire officials say about 4 inches fell at the fire command post overnight but they assume more “white gold” blanketed the fire at higher elevations. However, even though firefighters have stopped the spread of the fire, they cautioned that the fire is not out yet.

The fire has been burning since Sept. 8 when it was started by lightning. It spread to more than 8,700 acres and led to the evacuations of dozens of homes.

Soot-stained firefighters dragging tangles of branches out of the backcountry to grind up before they become kindling; exasperated residents gathered in community meetings, hanging on every word of weather forecasts out of fear the wind will change and bring fire to their doors; moments of joy and relief when evacuation orders are lifted and people finally get to go home; all are scenes seemingly lived and relived every year in the Centennial State.

At 8,118 acres burned and counting, with two structures consumed by flames, the Decker fire has also generated scrutiny. Some residents of nearby communities dealing with weeks of smoke-choked skies are questioning why federal responders didn’t do more to combat the fire when it was fewer than 1,000 acres burning exclusively in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness shortly after it was ignited on Sept. 8.

Salida resident Carrie Howard wants to see aggressive fire suppression, even in the wilderness where federal policy dictates that fires sparked by natural causes like lightning should be left alone until they threaten human interests.

“I think we should put it out. There are people’s homes that are still in jeopardy,” Howard said last week. “That’s why it’s out of control right now. They had 50 people watching it burn until it blew up, then they decided to put a lot of resources on it.”

U.S. Forest Service leaders and wilderness advocates emphasize that directly attacking every wildfire with chainsaws, bulldozers and other equipment used around population centers compromises the integrity of wilderness areas where fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. In many cases, including this one, use of that kind of equipment is banned unless express approval is granted by a forest manager or higher-ranking members of the U.S. land management hierarchy.

“Suppression over the last 100 years has caused a lot of fuels to accumulate, especially in wilderness areas,” Paul Delmerico, operations section chief for the Decker fire, said last week. “If we get a lightning-caused fire, that����ap Mother Nature telling us something. We’re making up for what we believe are the mistakes we’ve made in the past.”

, like many parts of the Rocky Mountain region, is choked with beetle kill trees, stands of deadwood that can feed fires and pose extreme overhead risks to firefighters. As a wilderness area, it has no roads to accommodate fire engines and, in this case, steep, rugged terrain, driving up the danger to crews that would be tasked with hiking in to fight it on foot. A thorough risk-reward assessment is undertaken before any firefighters are sent into such areas. No crews have been sent into the wilderness to fight the Decker fire on foot.

“We can mitigate a lot of things. One thing that it’s hard to mitigate is gravity,” Delmerico said. “Tumbling rocks, snags, trees that might fall; the wilderness has a lot of these things.”

For now, the Decker fire is still being viewed as a means to naturally clear some of the pent-up fuel in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. That strategy is being adhered to even as more than 700 people — and another 180 firefighters on their way — worked to contain the fire where it is burning near subdivisions along the Arkansas River east of the wilderness on Monday. Low humidity and high winds drove the fire to grow by another 800 acres overnight Sunday.

That doesn’t mean that if the team on the ground doesn’t feel it’s essential to use heavy equipment it won’t be allowed to. Requests are processed quickly when dealing with a large wildfire, Delmerico said.

Crews working the Decker Fire have used helicopters to dump water in places in the wilderness where they feel the fire could pose a risk to lives, property or valuable infrastructure and resources if it were to grow, incident commander Mark Giacoletto said Monday. The forest supervisor approved those efforts, he said.

As U.S. wilderness policy has shifted toward allowing fires to burn naturally, many people who live in what is known as the “wildland-urban interface” — areas where civilization butts up against protected wild areas — have come to appreciate and encourage a more hands-off approach to wildfire where appropriate, Delmerico said. The risks of living in the interface zone are frequently communicated by the Forest Service and other agencies.

Frank Comstock was allowed to return to the home he shares with his wife at the base of Methodist Mountain south of Salida last Wednesday after a week of sleeping in a trailer. He and his neighbors were evacuated in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. Fed by red-flag weather conditions, the fire defied models and grew by more than 1,600 acres that day, according to estimates shared by public information officials on Facebook. On the day he went home, Comstock said that he understood the decision to let the fire burn in the wilderness areas southeast of his home.

“It was on the other side of the mountain, so it was good. It has to be taken out of there,” Comstock said. “It’s a mess over there with all that beetle kill and fallen trees. I had no problem with that.”

Farther southeast on U.S. 50, in the community of Howard, Pamela Scrivner last week tried to calculate the damage the fire and smoke had done to her business without even coming close to her property line. Since December, she and her son Jesse Bohannon have been running the Black Bear RV Park and Resort. She estimated that after Howard was placed under a pre-evacuation order on Oct. 5, she had 20 to 25 customers cancel reservations. Meanwhile, some people staying with her, many of them older, were breathing potentially dangerous smoke.

“They let it get out of hand is what they did,” Scrivner said of officials managing the fire response.

Comstock has lived on Mount Methodist for 20 years and has never been evacuated because of wildfire before. He hopes it will be the last time.

With urbanization pushing deeper and deeper into wild areas, situations like the one playing out now in south-central Colorado are likely to become more common, said Lisa Ronald.

Ronald is the wildlands communications director at the Wilderness Institute, a center within the University of Montana’s W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation.

Science is proving that in the long-term active fire suppression techniques used in the past can damage a place’s ecology and lead to more dangerous cumulative impacts down the line, she said. From a philosophical standpoint, the hands-off approach to wildfire that has been baked into management plans for wilderness areas across the American West in recent years gets to the heart of the federal legislation that designated those areas in the first place. The Wilderness Act of 1964 defined wilderness as areas “untrammeled by man,” or, as Ronald rephrases it, wild and self-determined. It’s an ethos that is sure to bang into expanding human development, she said, particularly at this time in Earth’s history.

“Our climate is changing and fire is an unpredictable process. There is that level of uncertainty in dealing with any natural process,” Ronald said. “You can kind of think it as a wild animal. A bear isn’t a bear anymore if it’s tame and in a zoo. If you want to have the bear, and if you want the bear to be what a bear is, you have to live with some level of uncertainty. That gets back to this notion: Are we gardeners or are we guardians?”

Federal fire managers had to withdraw 755 firefighters from efforts to suppress the Decker fire, which expanded Sunday in the area south of Salida, U.S. Forest Service fire information officer Penny Bertram said.

“The firefighters have pulled back. We have an air tanker on request” to drop retardant on the fire, Bertram said.

“It moved really fast. We had to pull the firefighters out. That was right about noon. They were working to hold the lines.”

Air quality specialists deployed to Salida and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued an air quality advisory due to heavy wildfire smoke wafting over southeastern Chaffee and northwestern Fremont counties in the area between Salida and Cotopaxi. Health officials advised residents who see thick smoke to stay indoors.

Colorado mountain residents as far north as Fairplay in South Park and south of Poncha Springs in Saguache County reported impacts from smoke.

Temperatures dropping to 32 degrees at night typically help squelch wildfires. Colorado’s “fire season” traditionally has not extended into October, though in recent years wildfires have burned as late as November.

The National Weather Service warned of gusty conditions that favor rapid ignition, growth and spread of wildfire. Douglas fir trees at higher elevations and pinon-and-juniper forests toward the river have proved highly flammable.

“Those fuels remain really dry, even though it is cold at night, and the fire is still growing due to a lack of moisture, low humidity and the wind,” Bertram said. “That creates some really extreme fire behavior.”

Around noon, flames jumped the Rainbow Trail that runs along the Sangre de Cristo mountains — just as firefighting crews were clearing lines to try to contain the fire. Flames were spreading northeast toward Howard.

Fremont and Chaffee county authorities around 2:17  p.m. ordered about 50 buildings evacuated near Bear Creek Silverheels, Wellsville and Swissvale, following previous evacuations in the Methodist Mountain area closer to Salida.

The authorities on Sunday warned other residents to be ready to evacuate near Howard. Fire had spread to forests about 7 miles from town, officials said.

The Decker fire started around Sept. 8 with a lightning strike in the wilderness. Initially, fire managers tracking this blaze said that, because the fire was relatively small and burning in wilderness, about 50 firefighters would monitor it but that they were allowing it to burn to try to take advantage of ecological benefits for ailing, insect-ravaged forests.

“We’re not going to be suppressing it,” an incident command spokesman said in September. “Out here in the West, fire is part of the eco-cycle, always has been part of it. Lightning caused this fire. We’re trying to let it do some good, burn off some beetle kill.”

But on Sunday, forest service officials said the Decker fire “was always a suppression fire” and that rough terrain in the wilderness initially had prevented firefighters from attacking it in the early stages.

The Decker fire likely has burned across an area wider than 7,326 acres, to be determined once another aerial survey is done, officials said Sunday afternoon.

Heavy smoke from wildfires can increase the likelihood of respiratory trouble for sensitive people and worsen heart and lung problems. Health officials said people with heart and lung disease, the elderly and children should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.

The highway is closed in Clear Creek Canyon, between Colorado 93 and Colorado 119, west of Golden. Jeffco Sheriff Public Information Officer Mike Taplin suggested that drivers use Interstate 70 as an alternate route.

No one had been evacuated as of Friday evening, but some residents in the area had received notices to prepare in case of a later evacuation call.

The Bald Mountain fire, as first responders have dubbed it, was initially determined to involve one acre at around 3 p.m. Friday, but spread as the evening went on. The sheriff’s office said about 50 firefighters would continue working overnight, though air operations were called off when darkness fell.

Eight fire departments have responded, including Genessee, Clear Creek, Golden, Foothills and Intercanyon. It’s too early to speculate when the fire could be under control and the highway might reopen, Taplin said.

Highway 6 is closed indefinitely through Clear Creek Canyon due to a wildfire burning on the ridge just above the highway. Please@find alternate routes.

— CSP Gaming (@CSP_Gaming)

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Dispatchers indicated the fire was reported to be about an acre in size on a ridge north of Lyons. They did not know if any structures were threatened.

According to police radio traffic, the fire was first reported from the 2500 block of Blue Mountain Trail.

Boulder County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Haverfield confirmed Lyons fire crews were responding, but said the fire appears to be in Larimer County.

This story is developing, check back for updates.

It’s the annual kick off for the beloved Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the historic coal-fired locomotive that draws people from all over the world. The community gathers on a May day to grill hot dogs and hobnob with neighbors as the Bar D Wranglers serenade the crowd with classic cowboy music.

For Kristi Nelson, who played with toy trains in her living room as a little girl and who worked for the railroad for 15 years, the season’s start means it’s time to celebrate.

But not this year.

Nelson is one of more than two dozen area residents and businesses suing the railroad and its owner for causing last summer’s 416 fire, the sixth-largest wildfire in Colorado history that triggered thousands of evacuations, destroyed 54,000 acres and caused millions of dollars in economic damage.

�ճ����, filed in September, accuses the Durango & Silverton of carelessly running its vintage train despite extreme drought conditions. A federal investigation concluded that hot cinders from the train’s smokestack sparked the fire, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Tuesday filed another lawsuit to recoup the more than $25 million spent fighting the wildfire.

For Durango, which owes its 140-year-old existence to the train, the locomotive is the town’s identity. And it’s the region’s economic lifeblood, responsible for $250 million every year in the local economy.

The lawsuit has created two camps in town: Those who believe the train should be held responsible for the fire and those who believe its owners should be forgiven because of all the good the locomotive has brought to the region.

Some, such as Nelson, avoid community events. Friendships have been severed. Others avoid speaking openly about their views for fear of retribution. Even the local attorney who brought the lawsuit agonized over whether to follow through.

The train’s staunchest defenders can’t understand why anyone would go after the town’s economic engine.

“They’re really foolish and short-sighted,” said Duane Smith, a longtime Durango historian. “For heaven’s sake, this is not the right solution.”

As the community rallied behind its local treasure on May 3 for the start of a new season, Nelson avoided the festivities for the first time in 20 years.

“It’s with a heavy heart that I entered the lawsuit,” Nelson said. “It’s not my intention to hurt the railroad.”

416 Fire

On the morning of June 1, 2018, two residents said they saw a fire start moments after the train chugged up the drought-stricken Shalona Hill, just north of Durango.

The trains, which are nearly 100 years old, commonly shoot burning cinders and, particularly under dry conditions, “pose an extremely high risk of fire,” federal prosecutors wrote. The train ignited multiple fires in the month leading up to the 416 fire, the federal lawsuit said.

What started as a small brush fire quickly spread into a massive wildfire. The flames burned more than 54,000 acres across southwestern Colorado, shutting down the San Juan National Forest for the first time in its 113-year history. Firefighters fully contained the blaze by the end of July.

As the fire raged, the railroad suspended service for 41 days. While trains sat idly in the depot, local businesses struggled. The Durango Chamber of Commerce estimated the town’s economy took a $33 million hit in June alone.

A year later, Al Harper, the railroad’s owner, said he’s making changes to ensure the trains run safely this summer.

Harper spoke softly, projecting an aura of calm even as the U.S. Attorney’s Office was preparing to sue for millions of dollars in damages and the local lawsuit was winding its way through La Plata County court.

Sitting in his office above the train depot in downtown Durango in late June, Harper said he couldn’t comment on the fire due to the pending litigation, but he previously has said he would take “whatever steps necessary to make it right” if the railroad caused the fire.

Some changes already are taking shape. The train company is spending $6 million on improvements, Harper said, including the purchase of two diesel-powered trains that he hopes will be ready by September. Diesel locomotives can run in any weather and pose a lower fire risk.

While he had been considering adding diesel trains for years, “last year encouraged us to do it more quickly,” Harper said.

Other additions include $1 million for new tracks to accommodate the diesel trains and another $1 million for track improvements, Harper said. The railroad operator also is converting a 60-year-old oil-burning engine to add to its fleet.

The above-average snowfall this winter has eased some anxiety about the 2019 season’s fire conditions, but Harper said they will take no chances. On days with heightened risk, the railroad will park its coal trains and run the diesel engines. Helicopters carrying water likely will fly every day during peak season, Harper said.

“We’re probably the most fire conscious of any organization in the state of Colorado,” Harper said.

After a slow start due to this spring’s late snowfall, Harper said the railroad is within 2 percent of its normal passenger rate.

Durango’s “Golden Goose”

To understand Durango is to understand the railroad’s legacy. And it helps explain why so many people — even those who were significantly affected by 2018’s fire — remain avid train defenders.

“Without the train, Durango wouldn’t be here,” Smith, the retired history professor who taught at Fort Lewis College in Durango for 40 years, said.

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad founded Durango in 1880 to service the nearby San Juan mining district, part of the fevered gold rush era which attracted eager investors to the region. In 1882, tracks to Silverton were completed, and the train started hauling freight and passengers.

After mining began to falter in the 1930s, the train transitioned into a full-time tourist attraction, Smith said. And its majestic tour through the San Juan Mountains became the primary reason for people to visit Durango.

“We’re a pretty isolated spot down here,” Smith said. “So without that train, Durango would just be an isolated college town.”

The train impacts every industry in town, from shopping and dining to lodging and rafting. The railroad, and its 200,000 yearly riders, brings about $250 million a year to the region, said Jack Llewellyn, executive director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce. The railroad employs 200 people during the summer rush and 100 in the off-season.

Rod Barker, owner of Durango’s historic Strater Hotel, said 70 to 80 percent of his guests ride the train.

“It’s really an anchor for Durango and the surrounding area,” Llewellyn said. “They’re very resilient and we hope they keep running.”

Smith can look out his home’s window and see the train’s billowing smoke as it hauls legions of tourists from around the world. He’s watched the railroad keep the town afloat through lean years. It’s with this historical perspective that he questions the motives of those suing the railroad.

Smith is hardly alone in his sentiment.

Sheree and Danny Culhane own the Honeyville shop and farm just down the road from Nelson’s house on U.S. 550. They could hear trees exploding last June as the fire engulfed the forest beside their 100-year-old business.

The Culhanes and their employees evacuated for nine days, and while the fire didn’t make it to their shop, the smoke did.

“The whole experience was terrifying,” Sherry Culhane said. She estimated the business incurred $100,000 in damage as the couple tried to sell their sweet goods out of their garage.

Still, Culhane said she does not blame the train.

“It was so dry,” she said. “Nobody could have stopped it.”

After the fire, Culhane said railroad employees came by the store to see how they were doing.

“This town supports the train,” she said. “If the train didn’t run, tourism would dry up.”

Tom Bell can practically see the Durango train depot from the front of his shop on Main Avenue in downtown Durango. He’s managed the Lanka Blue Jewelry store for 25 years and sees how inextricably linked the train is to businesses around him.

“I don’t want to participate in a lawsuit against my golden goose,” Bell said. “It’s the cornerstone of our economy.”

A “precarious position”

While the railroad chugs back to normalcy a year after the devastating fire, Nelson is still picking up the pieces.

She lives just down the mountainside from where the fire first sparked, but it wasn’t the flames that upended her life. It was the ensuing mudslides which came down like a torrent, the charred soil unable to absorb the downpour pummeling the hillside.

The first flood on July 17 brought 18 inches of mud into her garage. Then, a week later, it happened again.

The flooding closed highways and county roads, inundating houses and businesses in the north Animas Valley with boulders, rocks and avalanches of mud.

“That one just took me to my knees,” Nelson said.

A foot-and-a-half of mud seeped into her kitchen. A boulder rammed her car. The walls in her house still bare faint lines marking where the sludge inched upwards. Nelson’s beloved garden, completely destroyed. It took 23 semi-dump truck loads and $116,000 to dispose of the debris on her property.

Like many people in the area, she didn’t have flood insurance.

“That kind of damage, when you’re retired?” Nelson said. “That’s a huge nut to crack.”

For Nelson, the fact that the train company might have been responsible for the damage put her in an uncomfortable position.

Nelson’s a train fanatic.

Just beyond her front door, framed pictures show a young Nelson grinning at the camera as she played with trains in her childhood home. Above the old photos, a G-Gauge LGB electric train sits on tracks circling the entrance way. Nelson flicked on the power, hooting as the mini locomotive chugged around the room.

Nelson even worked for the Durango & Silverton railroad company, serving eight years as vice president of sales and marketing and another seven as a contractor doing special events.

“I am a huge supporter of the railroad,” Nelson said, a refrain she repeated multiple times during a June interview at her home. As she spoke about the flood damage, the familiar whistle of the Durango & Silverton carried into the kitchen. “But now my relationship with them, of course, has changed.”

For Nelson and others, the decision to take legal action against the train carries personal consequences.

Since entering the lawsuit, Nelson hasn’t spoken to her old colleagues — many of whom she considers good friends. She skipped Narrow Gauge Day and the first day of service, when people line up in Silverton to welcome the season’s first trains. People around town ask why she’s taking legal action.

“It’s a precarious position I’m in,” Nelson said. “However, if the tables were turned and I mistakenly ran a vehicle of mine into train property, I would expect my insurance to pay. My hope is that their insurance will help pay for expenses I incurred.”

Nelson’s attorney, Bobby Duthie, had similar unease entering the lawsuit. A Durango native, Duthie woke up to the train nearly every day of his childhood. He loved it.

“My reluctance was, ‘Should I be involved in litigation against the train management for its decision to operate the train in those drought conditions?'” Duthie said. “Because I love Durango, and I didn’t want to hurt Durango.”

After reading news reports with eye-witnesses and fielding calls from clients regarding property and business losses, Duthie, in tandem with the Denver-based Burg Simpson law firm, decided to take the case.

Duthie said his involvement probably has affected some personal relationships.

“Some people are downright upset with me,” he said. “On the other hand, others are really supportive. There’s two camps.”

The animosity around the town has been too much for some.

One plaintiff contacted by The Denver Post declined to speak publicly for fear of retribution. The individual said he has been confronted on multiple occasions since his decision to sue and said more publicity would only inflame tensions.

Last summer, a vandal targeted railroad owner Harper’s house with graffiti — although the man tagged a neighbor by accident. “” the man wrote, according to the Durango Herald.

“It would be disingenuous to say the circumstances of 2018 weren’t stressful,” Harper said.

But he believes the majority of Durango’s residents fall on his side.

“My guess is 90-percent-plus in the community understands the importance of the railroad, understands how hard the railroad, and my family personally, worked to make sure we’re good citizens, make sure we’re good caretakers of the forest,” he said. “So that 90 percent gives me the faith that I don’t worry too much about the rest of it.”

Meanwhile, Nelson spends her days clearing rocks from her property, replanting lost vegetation. She’s added concrete barriers leading up to her home, and water engineers helped carve a new path to the river in case another flood comes. Every time it rains, she gets anxious.

“This was life-changing for me,” Nelson said. “It’s tenuous because I am a huge supporter of the train. But I feel like some difficult decisions should have been made.”

After a year-long investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver filed suit Tuesday against the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and its operator, American Heritage Railways Inc., on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service. The lawsuit blames the train for the fire and seeks approximately $25 million in suppression costs and other damages that are still being calculated, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Federal fire investigators determined the June 2018 fire was ignited by burning particles emitted from an exhaust stack on one of the train’s iconic coal-burning engine locomotives, the complaint said.

“This fire put property at risk, put the public at risk and put the lives of firefighters at risk,” U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn told The Denver Post. “We’re going to pursue this within the best interests of the United States and the people who live in the area to make sure we do right by them.”

The railroad operator knows the risks and is liable for any fire damage, Dunn said.

The complaint alleges the train ignited multiple fires along the Durango-to-Silverton track in the months leading up to the June 1 fire. An intense drought had blanketed the state, and the 2018 wildfire season was intense.

The complaint also cited four previous fires caused by the train, dating back to 1994, that required federal fire-fighting resources to extinguish.

“Defendants’ coal-burning steam engines commonly cast off burning cinders and other hot materials, and, particularly under dry conditions, pose an extremely high risk of fire,” federal prosecutors wrote.

At about 9:53 a.m. on June 1, 2018, the train cast burning cinders or other hot material as it chugged up Shalona Hill, part of the San Juan National Forest, according to the complaint.The train engine had a metal screen over the exhaust stack to catch the embers, but it didn’t catch all the burning debris from flying out. Once the embers hit the ground, they ignited a brush fire next to the railroad tracks, investigators found.

The 416 fire quickly spread into the sixth-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The flames triggered thousands of evacuations, caused millions of dollars in damage to the local economy and shut down the San Juan National Forest for the first time in its 113-year history. Firefighters battled the blaze for two months before it was fully contained at the end of July.

Two residents said they saw the fire start moments after the train traveled through a drought-stricken canyon just north of Durango.

Al Harper, the railroad’s owner, previously has said he would take “whatever steps necessary to make it right” if the railroad is found to have caused the fire.

Dick Waltz, an attorney for the railroad, said he could not comment on the pending litigation.

The railroad and its owner are also facing a civil lawsuit from more than two dozens area residents and businesses, who claim the company acted carelessly by running its coal-fired train during an extreme drought.

The railroad has been a staple of Durango for nearly 140 years, delighting tourists from around the globe with its century-old trains. The picturesque ride brings travelers through the San Juan mountains from Durango to Silverton.

ASPEN, Colo. — A man and woman who pleaded guilty to starting a wildfire that destroyed three homes in western Colorado have each been sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The Aspen Times reports Allison Marcus and Richard Miller were sentenced Monday and also must complete 1,500 hours of community service and pay $100,000 in restitution each.

Prosecutors say the two, both of El Jebel, started the Lake Christine Fire last July by firing incendiary tracer rounds at a shooting range. The wildfire scorched nearly 20 square miles (52 square kilometers) and forced thousands of people from their homes in the El Jebel area.

The judge acknowledged that some will think the jail sentence is lenient, but he noted Marcus and Miller are both in their early 20s and haven’t been in trouble with the law before.

___

Information from: The Aspen Times, http://www.aspentimes.com/