Colorado Burning: Wildfires Expand Again Amid Drought

Huge smoke plume erupts from a wildfire in Colorado
on Saturday. The wildfire season in Colorado should
be winding down by now. Not this year. 

Wildfires occur in Colorado almost every summer.  By mid-October, you expect them to be out, or at least dying down as winter rains and snows move into the state.  

Not this year, as high winds and continued drought keep sending flames up and down mountain slopes, and sometimes through neighborhoods.  There's no real sign of an end to all this. 

This past weekend was really rough.  To start with, the Cameron Peak Fire, as it's called, surged eastward, endangering more homes.  This is the largest wildfire in Colorado history.

It's burned more than 200,000 acres since starting on August 13. This massive, long lasting fire got tamped down a bit around September 9 as a rare bout of early season snow fell on it. Since then, however, it's been dry and windy, so the Cameron Peak Fire has raged on. 

Saturday was especially rough as a new fire, called the CalWood Fire, started Saturday and raced through the foothills around Boulder.  At least 23 homes burned. Probably more than that, actually, as people haven't been able to get in and assess everything yet. 

This fire had some extreme behavior. It's roiling smoke cloud created added high winds and featured funnel clouds of smoke as the fire roared from hill to hill. 

Yet another fire started Sunday northwest of Boulder, prompting further evacuations. 

The weather should improve later this week in Colorado, which could help control the fires, though it would take a lot of precipitation to stop them. Temperatures should generally be near or below normal in Colorado for the next 10 days or so, and some precipitation seems possible this coming weekend.

All of Colorado - and most of the West for that matter - is in drought. All of Colorado is in severe drought, with nearly 60 percent of the state in a the extreme drought category. 

As Colorado Public Radio reported in August, these types of hot, dry seasons will become more likely in that state and elsewhere in the west as climate change takes hold.

Hotter air dries things out faster than cooler conditions, and that was a factor this year.  As of August, Colorado was having its driest year on record and its 12th warmest. 

In the spring, the mountain snowpack was at or above normal in Colorado.  But it disappeared much, much more quickly than normal because of the hot conditions.  That, in turn, helped set the stage for the wildfires later in the year. 

The hot, dry weather that's becoming more frequent in Colorado is also creating longer fire seasons, which is why the current fires are raging well into the autumn this year. 

One climate researcher at Colorado State University is calling the whole situation "the new abnormal."

Colorado is just one example of how we're now seeing climate change play out in real time.