Snow brings bonus for firefighters

Elizabeth created her "first snowman ever" after last week's blizzard hit Lakewood.

LAKEWOOD – Last week’s blizzard dampened the wildfire danger in the city’s open spaces and large areas of Jefferson County, at least for now, and what could be a “significant” storm is expected as early as Friday night.

The season’s first blizzard, which snarled traffic from before dawn Thursday through the Friday morning rush hour, brought as much as a foot of snow to parts of Lakewood and up to 21 inches in Jefferson County’s foothills.

The moisture provided welcome relief for fire-fighting agencies, providing a temporary break from the risk of wildfire, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

“Its absolutely changed it,” Kelley said Monday. “It changed it for the short run, if not the long run,” Kelley said.

The snowfall, the first major storm of what has been an extremely dry snow season, left grasses and other smaller fuels saturated, but the larger fuels such as fallen trees and large limbs remain largely dry. Those are the fuels that stoke fast moving wildfires in the mountains.

“ We are going to have to have quite a bit more moisture for us to feel it has put a dent in the fire season,” Kelley said.

The Sheriff’s Office Fire Management crews spent much of Monday burning a slash pile on Yegge Road in South Turkey Creek Canyon.

The crews already had cut and gathered the slash to create a firebreak in the area, which is thickly wooded with houses spaced along a steep, winding road with only one exit.

“This is an area that could be quite treacherous should a fire come through there, so we’ve been focusing our efforts on mitigation for this neighborhood,” Kelley said. “Had we not got this snow, we would probably not be in a position to get rid of the excess (slash).”

Rocco Snart, the sheriff’s Fire Management Officer, said temporary relief is about all that can be expected unless snow and rain and cool temperatures stick around for a spell.

“A lot of that depends on how quickly it dries out. If we continue to see the cooler temperatures and things like that, I think its going to help us out some,” Snart said.

Snart, who was at the Yegge Road burn Monday, said fallen trees and limbs absorb little moisture from a brief snow pack and could ignite easily if dry, warm weather returns for any length of time.

“It’s going to take quite a while for the heavier fuels, the larger fuels, to get hold of any of this moisture and modify their condition,” Snart said.

Help could come in a small dose on Wednesday, when a 30 percent of showers is expected.

But the late-week storm the National Weather Service is watching could provide a much larger dose if its track carries it across the metro area.

The weather service reports that storm has the potential to bring heavy snow to the area late Friday into Saturday, according to Hazardous Weather Outlook advisory posted Monday.