The Boulder County Sheriff has expanded a fire ban to include the entire western part of the county.
The expanded ban now includes all unincorporated areas west of Colorado 93 including the entire Rabbit Mountain Open Space area.
In a statement, the Boulder County Sheriff’s department said the U.S. Forest Service has sampled fuels and found very dry conditions and high fire danger west of Nederland as well as in the Surgarloaf area:
“This included large dead and down logs and also the live tree moistures. Both fuel types are trending towards "very high" fire danger in nature to our local 10- year average. Samples were also taken at higher elevations west of Nederland which included Bunce School, Caribou and the West Magnolia recreational areas. The samples demonstrated the same drying pattern.”
Concerns that many federal fire aviation and ground crews have moved out of the area to fight other wildfires, as well as the upcoming holiday camping season prompted the increased ban.
The ban expands one issued last Wednesday for the central mountain corridor of the county.
The Sheriff says the fire ban will remain in effect until fire conditions improve.
