SALIDA – Jerry Mallett and Mike Rosso, two citizens of Salida who were evacuated in September from the Decker fire, said that they had never thought they may have to pack up and leave. Mallett and Rosso have been living in their separate mountain homes for nearly 20 years each, and while they say the Decker burn was startling, they will be staying. They love where they live and trust the fire mitigation they have done to their homes to keep them safe.
“At two o’clock in the morning the sheriff called and said the mountain is on fire,” said Mallett. “Everyone has to evacuate.”
He stayed in his house until around four o’clock and drove to town to meet his wife with some of their pre-packed belonging and their tiny dog named Bear. Rosso stayed a bit later, taking the time to pack his musical instruments, computers, and cash from his house before going into town. They were evacuated for a week before returning to their homes. It did not cross either of the homeowners’ minds that they may not have a house to return to, they said.
“I’m an optimist,” said Mallett as he stared out of his window at one of the five fourteen-thousand-foot peaks he can see from his house.
Looking out the front of his house, the view of Salida is partly obstructed by a Piñon pine growing onto his porch. Out the back, a view of the Sangre De Cristo mountains with a bare burn scar, not so much as a mile from the looker.
Mallett was glad that the forest service allowed the fire to burn in the wilderness. He was in favor of a “forest reset” that lowered fire danger by burning up the dry wood.
Mallett knowingly built his house in a red zone in 2000. A red zone is an area where fire danger is so high that agencies such as the National Forest Service will not help save it if there is a fire. He is not the only one who is living in the red zone. There are houses farther into the valley. Recently a woman moved into a house up the hill from Mallett. He went up to greet her and warned her of the dangers of wildfire in the area. Insurance rates are extremely high for their houses – it has been that way since they moved in- said Rosso. He trusts that his neighbors are taking appropriate measures to mitigate fire damage such as moving their log piles away from houses and cleaning their gutters.
There was nothing unusual about how the Decker Fire manifested itself in the wilderness, said Mokoto Moore, an incident meteorologist for the weather service and one of the many government workers in Mallett’s living room who dealt with the fire. This was the 46th wildfire he has worked on.
What Moore finds unusual is the number of dead trees lining highway 50 going into Salida and the nearby mountains. Trees are infested by the pine beetle and eventually killed within a few years. The beetles are not invasive, but wetter and colder years typically make the trees more resilient to beetle kill, says Moore. The warmer and dryer winters in recent years allowed the beetle to kill entire stands of trees in Colorado. He did not directly attribute the increase of dead trees to human-caused climate change because he works for a government agency, and is not permitted to speak on the subject under the current administration.
As the temperature increases in the west, Mallett is concerned that fires will be more prevalent.
“Fire is going to be part of our lifestyle,” he said. “We’ve taken a lot of trees down and we have more to take down.” Mallett does not like cutting down his trees. They are part of the intrinsic beauty he enjoys in his land.
“The tree over the porch is great, but it is a huge risk,” said Tom Kenny, a helicopter supervisor employed by the U.S Forest Service. Mallett knows that Piñon Pines are explosively flammable and he knows that having one on his porch is a risk. But he will not be taking it down.
The Decker fire was the biggest burn the area had seen in the last 100 years. It has built Climate Change awareness in the community, said Mallett. But this awareness and fear began to falter once it started snowing in early October and contained the fire. Mallett sensed this in the community that he is engrained in.
“if we get a wet year this year, I think people will forget about it,” said Mallett. “But if we get a dry year, it will be all about climate change.”
