The rapid growth of the Bircher Fire that began below Mesa Verde on Thursday should be a lesson to us all: This is what happens when a fire gets started.

Early Thursday afternoon, the local dispatch center received a report that a lightning-struck tree that had been smoldering since the weekend was burning again. A few moments later, firefighters arriving on the scene estimated the fire at five acres. Shortly afterward, they were calling for help from other area fire departments and then from state and federal agencies. By 3 p.m., Mesa Verde National Park was being evacuated of visitors.

This fire was sparked by lightning, but it could just as easily have begun with a campfire, a cigarette tossed from a vehicle, or a piece of machinery. No matter how fires begin, once they have a foothold in the scrub, they’re hard to extinguish. The rugged terrain favors fire over firefighters.

Fires like this one are especially problematic. Heat rises and pushes the flames up the steep walls of mesas and canyons, and in many places there’s no way to get ahead of it to construct any barrier that might stop it. Summer heat and strong sunlight on reddish rocks create air currents that spread fire very quickly, even when the wind isn’t blowing. Most summer afternoons, though, the wind does blow.

At the height of summer, we’re not likely to get much help in the way of substantial rainfall; the more likely possibility is that we’ll have lightning storms that make the situation worse all around. The humidity was lower Friday than Thursday. Any moisture that does fall will be helpful to firefighters, but it won’t revive grasses that are already dry and dead.

One of the reasons the Bircher Fire spread so quickly was a wheatfield, which this year resembled a thick stand of drying grass. Midwesterners know how dangerous such fires can be, moving so quickly that they can even overtake vehicles. That’s also true in forests, where flames can race through treetops, leap canyons and rapidly engulf large areas.

That’s why it’s so important they not get started in the first place, and that whatever the source, they be reported quickly and extinguished fully. Accidents do happen, and it’s better that they be acknowledged so that the fire can be suppressed immediately.

Responsibility can be sorted out later, but the best plan is to minimize the damage so blame is irrelevant.

Firefighters deserve, and have been receiving, the public’s support. They’re performing a service that’s sometimes dangerous and always grueling, and this has already been a long summer for many federal firefighters. They responded very quickly on Thursday, and they’ll stay until the work is done. If we’re lucky, they’ll all get home safely.