Fire Recovery
Fire Recovery work within the 2020 burn scars has been accomplished with Forest Service employees, partners and dedicated volunteers.
The Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland has experienced many wildfires in its history, including the two largest Colorado wildfires in 2020. Starting shortly after a fire starts and continuing well into the future, fire recovery is a large part of the Forest's management of this important landscape. Recovery partners, including local government and non-profit organizations, are key in the Forest's success at a landscape scale.
2020 Wildfire Recovery
The Cameron Peak Fire grew to be the largest fire in Colorado history in 2020.
Five major wildfires burned over 300,000 acres (more than 25%) of National Forest System lands on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in 2020 – Cameron Peak, East Troublesome, Williams Fork, Lefthand Canyon and CalWood – with two being the largest in Colorado history.
Immediate recovery efforts following the fires took place through our Burn Area Emergency Response (BAER). BAER really focuses on safety needs immediately following a fire.
After BAER efforts, comes the longer-term recovery efforts. The Forest continues to work closely with partners, including counties and water providers, to address long-term recovery needs. This includes working with partners to plan, design and analyze projects pairing stream restoration work, to slow flows, retain sediment and reconnect riparian areas, with roads that are being negatively impacted by post-fire increased runoff, undersized culverts and debris flows.
Recovery from these fires will take years to address. We ask for your patience as we continue to evaluate and implement all the recovery work ahead of us.
As of the end of 2023, 344,000 seedlings had been planted across 1,800 acres of high burn severity forest-wide. In 2024, over 250,000 trees were planted in the East Troublesome burn scar and over 45,000 within the Williams Fork fire scar.
The Forest worked with American Forests, the National Forest Foundation and many other partners to create the Northern Colorado Post-Fire Reforestation Strategy to help have a framework for future reforestation efforts.
The Forest began small-scale nucleation seeding in 2023 to determine the feasibility of this effort at a larger scale to restore native species seedbank of non-tree species.
Partner organizations have conducted important work on private land as well. For example, the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed has planted over 33,000 trees in the Cameron Peak Fire burn scar.
Check out this feature story to learn more: Sowing Seeds (Sept. 5, 2024)
Post-fire flooding has caused numerous roads forest-wide to experience culvert blowouts and debris-flow damage. Given the widespread nature of these impacts, some roads remain closed. Road repair and reconstruction efforts are underway in the Cameron Peak, East Troublesome and Williams Fork fire areas.
The Forest is working with partners to complete an assessment of trail status within the footprints of the Cameron Peak, East Troublesome and Williams Fork burn to identify repair and realignment opportunities.
Trail work has continued taking place since the fires, including on Roaring Creek Trail. This trail was heavily damaged during the Cameron Peak Fire but thanks to efforts by Forest Service employees, youth crews and volunteers the trail was reopened in 2024. Restoration work to compliment this effort was done with watershed partners on Roaring Creek. This combination will make the landscape more resilient into the future.
Range staff is working to replace burned fences separating range allotments.
Staff is identifying and treating noxious weeds within the fire footprints.
Research efforts are also underway looking at the impacts of fire on aquatic food webs, how aerial mulching impacts water quality and sediment retention, and how process-based restoration projects will impact water quality and sediment retention. All of this with hopes that it will lead to better informed fire recovery efforts in the future.
Pine seedlings pop out of the mulched landscape within the Cameron Peak burn scar.
The fire began on August 13, 2020, and burned 208,913 acres over nearly four months, growing to the largest fire in Colorado history. In 2021 and 2022, aerial mulching took place on 11,100 acres of national forest land.
- Over recent years, infrastructure throughout the burn area has been replaced, including toilets, bridges, kiosks, fences and boundary markers.
- With support from Wildland Restoration Volunteers, Larimer County Conservation Corps and Rocky Mountain Conservancy-Conservation Corps, many trail stabilization projects took place. This includes constructing 222 check dams, 40 culverts, 136 grade dips, 6 armored creek crossings, 391 retaining walls and 115 water bars in 2022 and 2023.
- Forest Service staff and partners, lead largely by Poudre Wilderness Volunteers have removed over 13,000 trees from trail corridors within the fire footprint. Over 95% of these were removed with traditional tools such as crosscut saws and axes!
- Design work continues for the Jacks Gulch Campground with construction planned to begin as soon as 2026.
- See the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed's page for their project work on the South Fork of the Cache la Poudre River.
The fire began on October 14, 2020, and burned 193,892 over a month and a half, making it the second largest wildfire in Colorado history after its historic jump over the Continental Divide. In 2021 and 2022, aerial mulching was completed on 10,000 acres of national forest land.
- Major road work, including enlarged culverts have happen in the Stillwater Pass area where major damage was done by post-fire flooding.
- Denver Creek Campground that was damaged during the fire is expected to open as soon as 2026.
- Northern Water has a website highlighting recovery efforts within the watershed and are a key partner with the Forest Service.
Safety After A Fire
Water and mud covers Highway 14 in the Cameron Peak burn scar in 2021.
People visiting near or in fire-impacted areas should be aware of flash flooding risks. Learn more online about flood after fire.
Area closures are often in effect in burned areas as recovery efforts take place. Be sure to check our Alerts page for the latest information.
Related Research
- The historic 2020 fire year in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming: A landscape assessment to inform post-fire forest management
- Metrics and considerations for evaluating how forest treatments alter wildfire behavior and effects
- Limited seed viability in long-dead serotinous lodgepole pine trees in the Southern Rockies, USA
- Living with wildfire in Grand County, Colorado: 2021 data report
- Occurrence of benzene polycarboxylic acids in ash and streamwater after the Cameron Peak Fire
- Understanding change: Wildfire in Boulder County, Colorado
- Quantifying aspect-dependent snowpack response to high-elevation wildfire in the Southern Rocky Mountains
- Parcel-level risk affects wildfire outcomes: Insights from pre-fire rapid assessment data for homes destroyed in 2020 East Troublesome Fire
FEATURE: Back on (Double) Track
The Grand Lake OHV Trails Crew has made significant improvements in 2026 to OHV trails damaged and closed by the 2020 East Troublesome and Williams Fork fires. Funded by Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s OHV grant program, the crew consists of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps seasonals led by recreation staff from the Sulphur Ranger District.
In partnership with Headwaters Trails Alliance’s Fire Recovery Crew, the OHV crew has turned hand tools, a mini excavator and a trail dozer into a well-oiled, trail-repairing machine, reestablishing and re-opening over ten miles of trail and building over 250 drains along previously closed routes. The crew, alongside Headwaters Trails Alliance and four Rocky Mountain Conservancy teams, also removed over 5,500 hazard or downed trees, built three turnpikes and reconstructed seven trail bridges along other motorized trails. Not to be confined to double-track, the OHV crew worked with Volunteers of Colorado to host a volunteer day on Gilsonite single track trail, building a 250-foot reroute along with several essential pieces of trail infrastructure.
With further work planned in the East Troublesome burn scar, targets for the 2027 season include heavy equipment reconstruction on trails in the Williams Fork burn scar.