Like crayons along outlines of shapes on a page, firefighters used drip torches to draw fiery lines along the perimeter of a prescribed burn area in Deer Haven, 25 miles northwest of Cañon City. As the wind blows, fueling the fire forward, the triangle — an area of about 69 acres in size — is shaded in with charcoal black. The unit was the first of four sections of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management totaling 177 acres that make up the Deer Haven prescription burn project. According to BLM Rocky Mountain District Fire Management Officer John Markalunas, they are hoping to burn the remaining three areas in the spring, noting how heavily dependent they are on weather conditions. “Next spring, we may get the next few, or next spring will be like this spring, and we’ll be back here a year from now,” Markalunas said.  

The weather conditions set for a controlled burn are called the burn prescription. Typically, winds must be less than 20 mph and relative humidity has to be between 15-25%. “From start to finish, it takes three years of planning before we even get to this point. And then it’ll take anywhere from one to five years to complete a project,” Markalunas said.  

The process leading up to the burn includes identifying an area, the fuels they want to keep and burn, identifying fuels outside of the boundaries just in case a fire escapes, a pollution report, resource analysis, and loads of other paperwork, planning and approvals. “It’s unfathomable, how complex it is,” BLM Rocky Mountain District Public Affairs Officer Levi Spelling said.  

The Deer Haven area is managed by the BLM and was identified as an area that needed to be burned nearly 15 years ago, and it was first burned in 2017. On Wednesday, with help from the United States Forest Service, Colorado Department of Fire Prevention and Control and Tallahassee volunteer firefighters, a maintenance burn was conducted. The goal: to remove regeneration of trees and plants that would lead to overgrown forests. “It’s good to do that every five to 10 years,” Markalunas said. 

As the wind picked up Wednesday, firefighters narrowed into the top of the triangle in the first section of the Deer Haven burn. The area will be monitored night and day for at least the next seven days as the fire dies out. Next spring, wildflowers will poke through blackened ground and cows and elk graze on new growth.