A fire broke out on Saturday night, Feb. 24, up near the second Flatiron in City of Boulder Open Space. It was extinguished by 1 a.m. the next morning. The exact cause of the fire is still unknown, but Brian Oliver, wildland chief for Boulder Fire-Rescue, said that natural causes can be ruled out.
“There was clearly some kind of human cause,” Oliver said. “But you get up there in the dark and start doing the firefighting the thing, and there’s usually not much worry about preservation of evidence at that point.”
Oliver explained that the fire started 75 to 100 yards above the Flatiron Loop Trail, located just north of the Second Flatiron. While there isn’t a designated path through the meadow connecting the Flatiron Loop and the trail leading to the first and second Flatiron, Oliver said there are many social trails in the area.
“You’re up there fighting fire and you turn around and the view of the city is gorgeous,” Oliver said. “It’s clearly a spot where people go, sit down, take in the view, watch the moon rise, probably have a smoke … and they’re just careless.”
Four firefighters from the city’s wildland division and four from the Boulder Mountain Fire Protection District responded to the call. Another nine came from other City of Boulder fire stations. And the bodies were needed. Because of the difficult terrain, and because air support was out of the question due to the late hour, all firefighting was done by hand.
“It truly is just grunt work,” Oliver said.
Some firefighters dug a fire break to stop the fire’s forward progress, while others walked behind it to identity areas where the flames had naturally burned out. Large, harder-to-extinguish fuel, such as tree trunks, were gathered into a pile in the middle of the burn scar to disintegrate into ash. Then, the ashes were mixed with dirt and snow collected from over a ridge north of the fire.
Oliver said these types of human-sparked fires are common.
“This is a pretty normal event for years and years and years,” Oliver said. “We get little fires up in and around the Flatirons all the time.”
This comes even after the Marshall Fire heightened much of the community’s awareness to fire risk. Oliver said he didn’t know what the solution was to avoid such “careless ignitions” outside of a robust and harsh enforcement of burn and smoking bans.
“But the system is so vast, it’s almost unenforceable,” he said. “That’s not a feasible solution.”
At this point, it’s just ensuring that the fire department is well-staffed on high risk days.
“Some people aren’t going to listen,” Oliver said. “They’re going to do whatever they’re going to do.”
