“They’re getting bigger, faster”: Colorado braces for what’s next after last year’s explosive wildfires

Leaders look to $24 million Firehawk helicopter, further forest thinning to combat worsening fires



By BRUCE FINLEY | bfinley@denverpost.com | The Denver Post

March 15, 2021 at 6:00 a.m.


Federal forest firefighter Ben McLane got a visceral feel for the West’s intensifying wildfire predicament when his 20-man Hotshot crew rolled into Colorado last summer and faced the lightning-sparked Pine Gulch blaze — flames racing across bone-dry land and, each day, leaping beyond containment boundaries the firefighters hacked into soil.

“You’re not going to stop megafires,” McLane said this week as increasingly arid states braced for more battles. “They’re getting bigger, faster, putting us on our heels.”

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