WESTERN COLORADO

The scene was stark for its incongruity: billows of smoke rising in front of the jagged Cimarrons coated with fresh snow.

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about Ouray County’s first wildfire of 2019 was its timing. At a point in the year when most federal firefighting crews have long stored away their helmets and Pulaskis and hunters looking to fill their tags hunker down against nighttime temperatures dipping into the teens, the Ouray County Fairgrounds transformed into a ...