West Fork Complex News Today

There’s no certainty swaths of beetle-bitten trees will recover over burn scars.

The 2002 drought was a massive catalyst for pests, including the spruce beetle, which in Colorado impacted 1.89 million acres statewide over two decades.

RIO GRANDE NATIONAL FOREST — The high alpine forests are a sickbed. Swathes of gray trees are bald on one side, with patches of russet needles fading into scraggly branches. Others show thick strips o...

Accused of setting the Spring Creek Fire, Jesper Joergensen will remain in custody, at least for now, after a judge refused to dismiss criminal charges against him Friday. Joergensen, a Denmark native who was in the United States on an expired visa at the time of the Spring Creek Fire in 2018, is charged with 349 counts of arson. The massive fire was the third largest in state history at the time — it’s since been surpassed after three of the five largest wildfires in state history occurr...