Officials hope park can rebound after wildfires

Officials hope park can rebound after wildfires

Sept. 12, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

As autumn colors fall over Mesa Verde National Park, almost half of the park is sporting shoots of green poking through blackened earth.

After two devastating summer wildfires that burned 28,504 acres, this is an encouraging sign of natural re-growth, but park officials are also hoping to regenerate a lagging tourism industry as well.

Visitation to the park was cut in half this summer after the back-to-back Bircher and Pony fires closed the park to visitors for close to three weeks in July and August.

July visitation was down by 45.6 percent this year, with a total of 77,946 visits, and the 64,221 August visits marked a 50.7 percent decrease from the same month last year.

The park recorded 349,654 visits in the first eight months of the year, down 31.3 percent from the same period last year. During the fire, officials said they lost close to $135,000 in expected ticket sales, and the number of campers dropped by 38,704 from last year in Morefield Campground.

Although the park is now $200,000 in the hole for fiscal year 2000, Will Morris, chief of interpretation and visitors services, said the shortfall in ticket sales will have an effect on staffing levels next year, and the park may have to increase ticket sales next spring.

"Contrary to some people’s belief, national parks are not flush. We budget to the bone," he said.

In addition, Wetherill Mesa, a popular area of the park burned over by the Pony Fire with several large sites, will remain closed until park officials can rehabilitate the area and make needed repairs. Park officials hope to open Wetherill to the public by next spring, and because the buildings may not be repaired, they plan on installing chemical toilets.

During a media tour of Wetherill on Saturday, Morris pointed out the various safety hazards and charred remains of buildings yet to be repaired.

In the Wetherill parking area, the small ranger station and visitor kiosk were burned to mere rubble. The intense heat from the Pony Fire scattered the ranger station’s Pro-Panel for a quarter of a mile, and it is now easy to see the Far View Visitors Center from the edge of the mesa.

Long House, the second largest site in the park, was spared. The fire came within several feet of the alcove structure, but didn’t burn inside the alcove.

"If it had come up the canyon, the intense heat could have potentially pulled off part of the alcove," said Morris.

Step House, another large alcove site on Wetherill, had a narrow brush with flames as well. The intense heat of the fire, estimated at somewhere between 1200 and 1400 degrees, licked the top of the sandstone several hundred feet above the alcove. This heat caused the rock to spall, loosening the top layer of the rock so that it fell to the edge of the alcove. It also changed the color of the rock from a mustard yellow to a dark red and black.

The spalling in the site is a major concern for park officials, since unsuspecting visitors could still be hit by rocks yet to fall from the cliff face.

In addition, the path to Step House has been covered over in many places by large amounts of dirt and silt that eroded from the hillsides, and a wood walking bridge was completely burned.

The pithouses on Wetherill suffered some damages. Firefighters had enough time to lower canvas curtains around the pithouses, but the fire burned through some of the plastic skylights and wooden beams. Some of this refuse has fallen into the pit structures.

Morris said that with road repairs and construction of new buildings, the cost to fully rehabilitate Wetherill could come as high as $22 million.

To offset erosion, the park is planning to reseed 6,000 acres before the first snowfall. Archaeologists hired to work on sites for the Save America’s Treasures programs have shifted over to work on sites that were burned over by the fire. Morris said that by the end of September new teams of archaeologists will begin conducting surveys in the backcountry

Park officials hope to aim more money at future fire suppression and thinning efforts around cultural resources. "I don’t think fire policy will change; we’ll take it more seriously and continue to fight it more aggressively," said Morris.

The two fires could also speed up plans for a new museum at the park’s entrance. Morris said that the fire has raised awareness, and that corporate and bank sponsors would provide the primary funding for such a facility.

ARAMARK, the park concessionaire, donated the proceeds from the sale of their Bircher Fire T-shirts to the Montezuma County fire districts and the local American Red Cross for their efforts. Of the $10,000 raised, $6,666 will go to the fire districts and $3,333 has been given to the local American Red Cross chapter.

The money was presented to Montezuma County Sheriff Joey Chavez at a reception on Saturday evening. "I tell you what, this is something that community did. It makes you feel good to live here," he said on Monday.