Wind blows clouds of ash on July 17 after fire damage from the Turner Gulch Fire near the community of Gateway. The cost for fighting the fire, which has burned nearly 32,000 acres since it started in mid-July, was $31.1 million as of Thursday. The estimated cost to fight all the fires burning in Colorado so far this year is $69 million and rising.
More than $6.6 million in aircraft-related costs.
Almost $6 million for firefighting handcrews.
Another $4 million for bulldozers, fire engines, water tenders and other firefighting equipment.
Then add in another $3.6 million for camp personnel. Also, about $1.6 million for catering, $2 million for facilities, and other costs for things such as supplies and showers that have contributed to $8 million in firefighting camp support costs.
Put it all together with some other miscellaneous expenses, and that's how the estimated cost of fighting the Turner Gulch Fire in Mesa County had approached nearly $30 million as of Tuesday, when the Sentinel was provided a breakdown of those costs.
By Thursday the cost estimate had risen to $31.1 million, according to the daily Incident Management Situation Report put out by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and based on reports by incident management teams for each fire.
The Turner Gulch Fire, as of this story's filing on Thursday, stood at more than 31,000 acres in size and was currently costing the most to fight when it comes to active Colorado wildfires.
The 4,232-acre South Rim Fire in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park has cost $15.2 million so far to fight.
The Lee Fire, at more than 133,000 acres as of Thursday, and the Elk Fire, at more than 14,500 acres, had cost an estimated $9.6 million and $9.2 million, respectively, to fight as of then. The two fires, both near Meeker, are being fought under the direction of a single incident management team.
Among other fires in the state, the Stoner Mesa Fire outside Dolores, which was more than 7,100 acres in size as of Thursday, accounted for about $2.8 million in firefighting costs as of then, while two other active fires in the state had incurred costs of about $600,000 each.
Combined, the Colorado fires' firefighting costs had exceeding $69 million as of Thursday, and those costs continue to mount.
Said Tracy LeClair with the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, "Those (cost estimates) are very preliminary because it's based on the finance sections of each fire entering crew time reports and they get the aviation reports that show the hours that aviation flew and how much retardant they dropped. All that gets added in, and sometimes it's weeks after a fire is considered done before they get all the numbers."
Stanton Florea, a spokesperson for NIFC, said the costs currently available for active fires are running estimates, and it will take months and sometimes years after a fire, when a cost apportionment formula is applied to a fire, before it is determined what percentages every agency or entity must pay for the cost of fighting the fire.
Factors such as where a fire starts, such as on private versus federal land, and what proportion of it burns on various jurisdictions' lands are considered in allocating the responsibility of paying for the firefighting costs. LeClair noted that a fire may start on private land but only burn a few acres before moving on to federal land, which can end up representing a much bigger percentage of the fire's acreage.
Florea noted that if someone is found to be responsible for a fire, that person also could be responsible for suppression costs.
LeClair said that while the state doesn't reimburse the federal government for any firefighting costs related to fires on their lands, once a nonfederal fire exceeds the resource capabilities of a local fire department and the county sheriff, who is the fire warden for the county, the fire becomes the state's responsibility in terms of suppression costs. If the state uses up money in an emergency firefighting fund, there is additional money that the governor can authorize tapping, she said.
On Thursday, Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order allocating emergency funding of $2.5 million into the Wildlife Emergency Response Fund, which is used to help local agencies try to keep small fires from turning into larger ones that become the state's responsibility and have bigger impacts. His office said that one month into the state's fiscal year, $1.5 million of the $1.7 million already allocated has been spent due to historic fire activity and the increased need for state support for local agencies under current fire conditions.
States can seek Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to cover 75% of their eligible firefighting costs. FEMA has agreed to help cover the state's costs in the Lee and Elk fires, and the Oak Fire near Pagosa Springs.
Colorado currently is seeing some of the most significant fire activity among fire-prone states, with the Lee Fire in particularly having grown into one of the largest in the state's history. LeClair said that while this year has been more active than the past couple in Colorado for fires, there were larger and more fires in 2020 in the state. The largest fires in the state's history burned that year.
Florea said the nation this year is running ahead of five- and 10-year averages in terms of acres burned. Some 43,500 fires have burned about 3.65 million acres so far this year. That compares to a 10-year average for full calendar years of about 37,000 fires and 4.5 million acres burned.
According to NIFC, the U.S. Forest Service has incurred a 10-year average of about $2.1 billion a year in fire suppression costs, and Department of Interior agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, close to $480 million a year.
Looking back at NIFC data dating to 1985, the Forest Service and Interior Department combined didn't incur suppression costs of more than $1 billion a year until the year 2000.
Largest Fire Costs
Turner Gulch Fire, currently at 31,000 acres in size -- $31.1 million South Rim Fire in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park at 4,232 acres -- $15.2 million Lee Fire, at more than 133,000 acres and the Elk Fire, at more than 14,500 acres -- an estimated $9.6 million and $9.2 million, respectively