Congress Should Fix Our Forests Before the Next Red Flag Warning
By Hunter Rivera | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
I still remember the orange sky over Loveland in October 2020: ash on windshields, headlights at noon, and a horizon rimmed with flame. The Cameron Peak Fire burned more than 200,000 acres across the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Rocky Mountain National Park, destroying hundreds of structures and forcing thousands to evacuate. The same month, the East Troublesome Fire exploded across Grand County, jumping the Continental Divide and claiming lives. Those weren’t abstract “Western wildfire” headlines. They were in Northern Colorado’s front yard.
If you want to remember what megafire really means, drive Highway 14 toward Cameron Pass. Mile after mile, blackened trunks still stand like matchsticks where forest...
