Several campgrounds across the state will be unable to provide visitors with water because their wells are low or dry amid one of the worst droughts on record, according to a spokesperson for the USDA Forest Service. Those include the Lowry, Prospector, Windy Point and Marvine campgrounds in the White River National Forest; and the Iron City, Spillway and Jefferson Creek campgrounds in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest.

Additionally, the spring-fed water supply at Sylvan Lake State Park in Eagle is critically low and may run dry during the season. The website advises filling camper tanks ahead of arriving and notes limited potable water is available at the visitor center.

Conditions can change at any time, so it’s worth contacting the local ranger where you plan to travel to see about water availability. As a rule of thumb, bring your own.

Colorado is facing drought after the winter saw record-low snowpack and an uncharacteristically warm spring. On June 2, Gov. Jared Polis declared a state of emergency to begin coordinating the state’s response to the impending lack of water.

At the local and regional level, many water utilities — including Denver Water — have enacted outdoor watering restrictions for the spring and summer. Aurora City Council is also discouraging restaurants from automatically serving water to guests, in an effort to count ‘every single drop.’

The valley features a meandering creek, wide wetlands with lush shrubbery and spectacular views of 13,200-foot Homestake Peak. Some of the wetlands are peat bogs, called fens, that were created after glaciers retreated 10,000 years ago.

Until last year, dispersed camping in the valley was largely unregulated, but then the forest service began restricting camping to designated sites only. Now, as of Monday, a nightly fee of $20 is required to camp in 44 sites designated for individual use. Two group sites are available, priced at $80.

Fees will be used to clean campsites and fire rings, manage and collect trash, maintain and replace infrastructure and make visitor contacts. Services will be provided by a private concessionaire. Due to limited resources, it is difficult for the forest service to offer those services.

“Having the concessionaire provide more consistent management of this new campground will help reduce impacts and provide visitors a safer, more enjoyable experience,” district ranger Leanne Veldhuis said in a news release.

The valley is located at the edge of the Holy Cross Wilderness. The forest service began designating sites for dispersed camping after seeing increased camping along roads and in environmentally sensitive areas. In addition to dispersed sites, the Gold Park Campground has 12 sites and a vault toilet.

The entrance to the valley at Homestake Road is located at U.S. Highway 24, 11 miles south of Minturn and 20 miles north of Leadville. Visitors can pay for campsites with cash or check at two kiosks, one located near the start of Homestake Road, the other at the Gold Park Campground. Dumpsters are available at those kiosks and firewood can be purchased at Gold Park.

Campsites are available on a first-come, first-served basis this year, but the forest service plans to make some sites available for reservation next year.

Only residents and first responders will be let into the southern portion of Eagle-Thomasville Road, also known as Crooked Creek Pass, the on social media.

Firefighters increased containment to 40% on Friday, U.S. Forest Service officials said in an update. The 20-acre wildfire near the Eagle and Pitkin county lines is now smoldering in “heavy fuels” like larger logs.

The Spring Creek fire has burned 21 acres near the Eagle and Pitkin county lines, just north of the Ruedi Reservoir, since it was discovered Tuesday. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Firefighters stopped the fire from growing and gained 20% containment on Thursday, U.S. Forest Service officials said Friday morning.

Mandatory evacuations are still in place for homes along Eagle-Thomasville Road, also known as Crooked Creek Pass; north of Brush Creek Road; and south of Crooked Creek.

This is a developing story.

The Bear fire, Willow fire and Spring Creek fire consumed nearly 200 acres this week in Garfield, Eagle and Las Animas counties, fueled by dry conditions and high winds.

Firefighters in Rifle gained full containment on the 10-acre Willow fire on Thursday afternoon, less than a day after the fire sparked in a backyard and raced along Government Creek to an apartment complex, where it destroyed an eight-unit building.

Two apartment buildings remained under mandatory evacuation overnight, but Garfield County officials said people were allowed to return home Thursday morning.

To the southeast, lifted all mandatory evacuation orders for the 150-acre Bear fire, which sparked Wednesday north of Trinidad near the Army’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site.

“We ask evacuees who return to their homes to please be vigilant and be prepared to re-evacuate if fire behavior changes,” fire officials said on Facebook.

To the north, almost 100 firefighters continued to fight the Spring Creek fire as it burned in the near the Eagle and Pitkin County lines.

The fire charred 20 acres northeast of Aspen with no containment since it first sparked on Tuesday, U.S. Forest Service officials said.

As of noon Thursday, crews were still constructing hand lines to contain the fire and dealing with critical fire weather, the forest service said.

Mandatory evacuations are still in place near the Ruedi Reservoir, including homes along Eagle-Thomasville Road, also known as Crooked Creek Pass; north of Brush Creek Road; and south of Crooked Creek.

The cause of all three fires is still under investigation.

Wildfires in Eagle, Garfield and Las Animas counties charred almost 200 acres, fire officials said Wednesday evening. Only one fire, the 3-acre Willow fire in Garfield County, appeared to have some containment.

The Willow fire started in a Rifle backyard just after 4 p.m. and quickly spread to wildland along Government Creek, Colorado River Fire Rescue officials said in a news release.

Fire officials ordered evacuations for people living along Willow Creek Circle and West 30th Street as the wildfire, fueled by high winds and heavy fuel loads, burned toward Rifle Creek Apartments and caught the roof of an eight-unit apartment building on fire.

“The building sustained significant damage and is believed to be a total loss,” fire officials said.

People displaced by the fire can go to the Garfield County Fairgrounds, 1001 Railroad Ave. in Rifle. Firefighters were still on scene Wednesday night working to contain the fire, extinguish hot spots and assess damage, the agency said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The Spring Creek fire continued to burn near , about 15 miles northeast of Aspen in the White River National Forest, with no containment Wednesday, the U.S. Forest Service said.

The fire, initially called the was reported just before 2 p.m. Tuesday near the Eagle-Pitkin county line and quickly caused Eagle County officials to order mandatory evacuations in the area.

People living along Eagle-Thomasville Road, also known as Crooked Creek Pass, should leave the area immediately, county officials said. The evacuation zone includes land north of Brush Creek Road and south of Crooked Creek.

Approximately 95 firefighters are working the fire and trying to build handlines while dealing with a large number of “snags,” or hazardous dead trees, which is slowing crews down. The fire grew by about 5 acres Wednesday and now measures 20 acres.

“Strong afternoon winds on the Spring Creek Fire created challenges for firefighters, limiting the support of the heavy helicopter and forcing firefighters to disengage because of the risk of falling snags,” forest service officials said.

The cause is under investigation, according to the agency.

Approximately 200 miles south of the Spring Creek fire, the Bear fire charred 148 acres near the Army’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site north of Trinidad.

Las Animas County officials ordered mandatory evacuations after the fire sparked Wednesday afternoon, including for people living near Las Animas County Road 78.9 and Bear Springs Trail.

The fire is burning near County Road 133.8 near the Otero County line, and the cause is also under investigation, fire officials said. People displaced by the fire can find shelter at the Las Animas County Fairgrounds, 2000 N. Linden Ave. in Trinidad.

On Tuesday, the White River National Forest banned tents, pop-up tent trailers, truck-bed tent campers and other soft-sided shelters at a campground in Eagle County. The public safety order was issued because a bear “that shows little fear of humans” damaged two unoccupied tents in separate incidents, “and continues to return to the campground,” the agency said.

The order requires all campers at , six miles east of Vail, to use hard-sided campers or trailers. Located at 8,700 feet, Gore Creek Campground has 24 sites. The bear has been visiting at all hours, day and night.

“We’re already starting to see bear activity in the campground this year, and we are taking this proactive step for public safety,” said Eagle-Holy Cross District Ranger Leanne Veldhuis in a statement.

In addition, the U.S. Forest Service “ for all its developed campgrounds and many dispersed camping areas to help prevent black bears and other wildlife from obtaining food from humans and becoming a nuisance or dangerous,” according to the order. “Each campsite at Gore Creek Campground has a bear-resistant food locker, and there is information about proper food storage posted throughout the campground.”

Last summer, around this same time period, the Forest Service posted a similar band and warning at Difficult Campground, located 5 miles southeast of Aspen, after increased bear activity was reported by campers.

The 287-acre Knapp Ranch started by Bud and Betsy Knapp is about 30 miles west of Vail and adjacent to the White River National Forest and the Holy Cross Wilderness.

Ken Mirr of the , which listed the property for sale, said in a statement that the ranch is regarded “as one of the Western Region’s most iconic mountain, fishing and conservation ranches.”

The Knapps expanded their vision beyond building an informal country retreat for family and friends to making it a working farm, using sustainable practices, according to the Mirr Ranch Group.

bought the property in 1993, their son, Aaron Knapp, said.

“The first two years were spent working with the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers rehabbing West Lake Creek, which runs right down the middle of the property,” Aaron said.

They reintroduced native plants, fish and insects and created pools for fish. The Knapps built cabins and then the main house on a hill.

The Knapps moved to the ranch full-time in 2006, Aaron said. The couple sold their home in Los Angeles to live in the Colorado mountains.

“We’d come up to Vail all the time when I was a kid,” said Aaron, who lives in nearby Eagle. “We took vacations all the time so it was a very natural transition for my dad to go from Los Angeles to Colorado.”

Aaron said his parents worked with the U.S. Forest Service to cut down beetle-infested pine trees and clear other vegetation. They also worked with Colorado State University, which had weather stations in the area. They consulted with the school on high-altitude farming.

The property is at roughly 9,000 feet in elevation. The family had a store for a while in Eagle where they sold home-harvested honey and produce from their farm and other area farms.

The Knapps wrote about their ranch in the book “Living Beneath the Colorado Peaks: The Story of Knapp Ranch.”

The site fronts about three-quarters of a mile of West Lake Creek. The ranch has senior water rights, ponds, creeks and aquatic systems.

The site also has a private trail network and is near world-class skiing, hiking and year-round amenities, the Mirr Ranch Group said. The ranch is within an hour of the Eagle County Regional Airport.

Since then, state and federal agencies have joined them to discuss ways to reduce dead trees and other potential wildfire fuels in the forest nearby, not only for the threat they pose to Frisco, but also to the Dillon Reservoir bordering town to the east. Wildfire runoff could contaminate the reservoir, which represents about 40% of Denver Water’s supply to the metro area.

Earlier this month, Frisco — which measures less than two square miles and has a population of about 3,000 — and those agencies worked out a plan for wildfire fuel reduction on national forest land. But in doing so, they also took that opportunity to expand recreation opportunities in a 3,000-acre area south and east of town, colloquially known as Frisco’s “Backyard.”

That part of the plan includes improving 40 miles of summer trails and 10 miles of groomed cross-country ski trails and redesigning two trailheads that will encourage more people to recreate in the White River National Forest. To do so, the forest service will issue a special use permit — similar to what the agency does for ski areas — that will allow Frisco to help manage the Backyard.

The Backyard gets more than 250,000 visitors per year across all four seasons, and many of them are coming “directly from town,” said White River’s acting Dillon district ranger, Sam Massman. “That huge number of visitors makes it really important to the local outdoor recreation tourism economy. It����ap a way of life for [them]. A lot of people can leave right from their house and be into the woods. They spend a ton of time back there.”

For years, the town has had a separate special use permit to manage recreation in the Peninsula Recreation Area, which is also situated on forest service land and includes an extensive trail network for both winter and summer recreation. That area includes the popular Frisco Nordic Center and extends down to the reservoir itself.

“We’ve kind of built out those trails,” said town spokeswoman Vanessa Agee. “Now we want to move over to the Backyard and build there, and it����ap all going to be connected at some point. The most amazing thing is that you could be staying at a hotel or an Airbnb, right off of Main Street or on Main Street, you could walk three blocks and you’re headed onto the Frisco Backyard.”

Tying it all together

The work will begin this summer, when Frisco begins construction of a 1.3-mile summer hiking trail and a 1.4-mile Nordic ski trail connecting the Peninsula Recreation Area, which is north of Colorado Highway 9, with the Backyard on the other side of the highway. In late summer, the town plans to begin rebuilding, improving or re-routing an additional 12.3 miles of trails.

It also hopes to begin construction of 4.7 miles of new trails and adopt 14.3 miles of “social trails” — unofficial pathways that have been created by human traffic — for addition to the existing forest service trail network.

“We’re looking at them together, trying to make a logical system where we’re not duplicating routes and where we’re considering how the trails and the recreation experience interact with the proposed fuels treatments,” Massman explained.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit Summit Huts Association plans to build an overnight hut at the Peninsula Recreation Area in partnership with the town. Summit Huts already operates five backcountry huts in Summit County and will fundraise to build the Frisco hut.

“We kind of have this model of working with the forest service,” said Pete Swenson, Frisco’s Nordic Center and trails manager. “Once you get out of the town of Frisco, you’re pretty much on forest service land, so it����ap a logical partnership.”

Wildfires are a “legit concern”

But it was the fire mitigation plan that paved the way for the recreation improvements.

While Frisco is small, it acts as a sort of gateway town for the Breckenridge and Copper Mountain ski areas, and to some degree for people heading over Vail Pass to the ski resorts further along I-70. As a result, it boasts an assortment of stores, restaurants and other businesses that generate sales tax revenue, enabling the town to pursue ambitious projects despite its small size.

That includes more than $780,000 the town spent on the National Environmental Policy resource management study (approved this month) regarding the wildfire risk they face and ways to mitigate it. It was a direct reaction to those fires in 2005 and 2017.

“We were all like, ‘It����ap a legit concern, we actually need to do more around fire mitigation, we have a real problem,'” said Agee, the town spokeswoman. “It’s not that we were dumb and didn’t think that fire danger was legit, but that really made us think harder.”

Fuels treatment means reducing materials that could readily burn and spread wildfire. The Backyard has a lot of lodgepole pine trees that were killed by the mountain pine beetle. Fuel reduction work will focus on removing dead and live lodgepole pines.

“The aspen trees, the spruce trees and the fir trees, those will all stay,” said Massman, adding that they are immune to the pine beetle. “The area is steep, there is no real road access, so most of the treatments will occur with hand crews cutting with chainsaws and then hand-piling logs for future pile burning. It����ap not like a prescribed burn. We’d make these piles and then we’d burn them in the winter when snow is on the ground.”

Concerning the reservoir, Denver Water spokesman Todd Hartman said the agency is “heavily engaged” in forest management projects like what’s planned for Frisco’s Backyard to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires that have damaged other reservoirs.

“The size of the reservoir does insulate it against some impacts that would be more damaging to some of our smaller reservoirs,” Hartman said in an email. “A reservoir as large and as deep as Dillon would naturally be more resilient to this kind of event than a smaller one. Even so, a large fire that resulted in the need for debris cleanup (burned trees and the like) in Dillon could prove costly and disrupt operations there.”

In addition to the USFS and Denver Water, the town is also working with Summit County, the Colorado State Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation on the overall plan.

The Backyard was incorporated into the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument when it was created by presidential proclamation in 2022. The national monument is located on two parcels of national forest land, one in the historic Camp Hale area west of Copper Mountain and south of Vail Pass, the other on either side of the Tenmile Range east of Copper Mountain. That includes the Backyard, which contains historical sites from Summit County’s 19th-century mining days.

“It includes what����ap left of the Masontown, which was a mining town on the side of Mount Royal for decades around the turn of the 20th century,” Massman said. “A lot of the historic objects back there are wood cabin remains. We designed the project also to make those objects more protected from fire and hopefully better managed with regard to the high levels of visitation.”

Summit County deputies responded to an explosion at the trailhead for Straight Creek Trail near the Dillon Valley neighborhood shortly before 7 a.m. Friday, according to a .

The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Summit Fire and Emergency Medical Services, the Red, White, and Blue Fire Protection District and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Residents in the area reported hearing an explosion and seeing smoke, sheriff’s officials said. When deputies arrived, they found a vehicle fully engulfed in flames.

One man was inside the car when it exploded, and he died from his injuries at the scene, according to the release. He will be identified by the Summit County Coroner’s Office.

“Anytime there is an explosion and a tragic death, there will be a significant investigation,” Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said in a statement. “We have brought together a team of experts to determine exactly what happened. What we know right now is that a person has died, and our thoughts are with their loved ones as we work to find out exactly what happened.”

Investigators believe the explosion was an isolated incident.

Anyone with information about the deadly incident is asked to contact the Summit County Sheriff’s Office at 970-668-8600.

The Straight Creek Trail is an old double-track road that parallels Interstate 70 up to the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel, .

Hikers on the trail cross Straight Creek several times as they climb up the valley through a pine forest, U.S. Forest Service officials said. Straight Creek is the main water supply for Dillon.

This is a developing story and may be updated.