A new study out of Western Colorado University has implications for the wildfire season ahead as nearly the entire West faces record-low snowpack conditions.

The paper, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal “Environmental Research Letters,” found that not only is an early-snow melt associated with earlier fire seasons and a more acreage being burned, it’s also linked to more severe wildfires.

“When we have a low-snow winter, those high elevation forests will have lower live fuel moisture and ultimately more flammable conditions during the summer,” said Jared Balik, the lead author of the study. “That in turn, promotes greater burn severity, greater fire severity, that increases the risk of forest loss or conversion of forest to shrubland or grassland.”

The study used satellites that measure pre- and post-fire conditions to estimate burn severity of fires across 11 Western states — including Colorado — from 1985 to 2021, Balik said. Using that 36-year dataset and regional snowpack metrics, he said researchers were able to create models to explore the interactions between snowpack levels and wildfire seasons.

Balik said the study’s results confirmed what fire ecology scientists have long known: That the earlier the snow melts, the sooner the fire season can begin and that an earlier meltout typically creates drier conditions that make landscapes more susceptible to fires starting and spreading.

“Together, those two factors provide both more time and opportunity for fires to ignite and spread,” Balik said. “But we were curious, knowing that, what the implications of a low-snow year were for the severity of wildfires. What does snowpack mean for the effects of fire on our landscapes?”

Snowpack acts like a ‘savings account’ for forests

The impact of the snowpack on fire intensity — or how much of a forest’s trees and vegetation a wildfire consumes — had not previously been well studied, Balik said. Fire severity is important because while forests can survive low intensity fires, he said forests tend to have a more difficult time regenerating after high intensity fires that can kill adult trees and damage the next year’s seed source.

“These high severity fires can really change ecosystems,” Balik said. “They can cascade into other impacts on how those ecosystems store carbon, how they hold water in subsequent seasons and changes to the quality of habitat they provide for wildlife.”

Across the entire West, the study found that higher snowpacks were associated with less severe wildfires during the subsequent fire season, while lower snowpacks were linked to more severe wildfires.

Low snow reduces the soil moisture during the growing season, which results in trees and other plants drying out, Balik said. That increases how much of the forest will burn if a fire starts and how likely trees are to die as a result of the fire.

“Winter snowpack really acts as a kind of a seasonal water savings account for these western forests,” he said. “When that account runs low, the soils and vegetation dry out earlier, and those forests become more vulnerable to more severe fire.”

Colorado’s fire season has already begun

Balik said the study’s findings are made all the more noteworthy as Colorado and the West face some of the worst snowpack conditions on record.

Colorado’s snowpack has trended near all-time lows for much of the season and, as of the start of April, is likely worse than it’s ever been for this time of year, according to the state climatologist’s office.

“We’ve already seen a fire south of Colorado Springs. There’s already huge fires in Nebraska,” Balik said. “Sure enough, we’ve had a low-snow winter and the fire season has effectively begun.”

With climate change, which is caused by burning fossil fuels that release heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere, he noted that scientists predict the West will see warmer temperatures and lower snowpacks.

Looking at long-term snow patterns across the West, Balik noted that the four corners states, including Colorado, have seen the strongest evidence of long-term snowpack declines. While the snowpack in recent years has trended lower, he noted “there’s a lot of interannual variation,” due to climate patterns like the El Nino and La Nina.

Balik said the study shows that as climate change drives snowpack declines throughout the West, the region should anticipate longer fire seasons with fires that are not only larger but are more severe.

“This work really suggests that we need to start thinking about fire season as less of a summer phenomenon and more of a phenomenon that kicks off once the snow is gone,” he said.

The research also highlights that communities should make the most of winters with good snowpacks by focusing on prescribed burning and other wildfire mitigation measures when there is the opportunity, Balik said.

While the snowpack this winter suggests that the West could be heading into a dangerous fire season, he noted that weather patterns could still change for the better and people can reduce the risk of wildfires by acting responsibly.

“If we get a wet summer or a really wet spring, that could still make a difference,” Balik said. “And of course, it also very much depends on what people do. A lot of the most damaging fires are started by people. If we act responsibly when we’re out recreating, maybe we can start one fewer fire.”

The famed Blue Lakes on Colorado’s Western Slope will once again reopen for recreation following a closure in the summer of 2025, and lucky for hikers, there will be no permits required for day-use and overnight camping there until 2027.

Located near Ridgway and Telluride, the Blue Lakes are among the most popular places to hike in the San Juan Mountains thanks to their alluring turquoise waters, robust wildflowers and access to the roughly 14,150-foot Mount Sneffels. The three lakes are so popular, in fact, that the U.S. Forest Service is now implementing a plan to reduce foot traffic to the area in hopes of restoring the natural environment, which has suffered over the years.

In addition to requiring permits in the future, that plan included last summer’s closure, which enabled the agency to upgrade some of the visitor amenities and lay the foundation for future restoration projects in the area, said Dana Gardunio, Ouray District Ranger for the USFS. Crews focused on remediating and re-seeding human-made campsites that eroded the soils, ripping up user-made trails, clearing dead trees, and cleaning up human waste.

“We found a lot of piles of human feces and toilet paper behind almost every tree that was up there,” Gardunio said.

Reducing traffic to the area for one summer may have an impact on the wildlife there, too. Gardunio said crews saw moose at Lower Blue Lake, as well as bears, deer and elk.

As hikers and campers prepare to return this summer, there are new guidelines they should be aware of to avoid overcrowding and to enable more restoration to be done. The forest service and its partners, like the San Juan Mountains Association, will have personnel at the trailhead, along the trail and at the Lower Blue Lake to help ensure compliance, Gardunio said, “because we don’t really want to lose the investment we’ve made in the work if it’s not being respected.”

Here are five things you should know before making the trip to the Blue Lakes in the summer of 2026.

Crowds and conditions

In the past, the Blue Lakes saw about 35,000 visitors per year. Gardunio expects traffic to reach those levels in 2026, though it’s possible there may be an increase as people seek to visit prior to the permit system launch next year.

Peak hiking season runs June 1 through Sept. 30, with the most foot traffic coming through on weekends and holidays. Given the warm and dry conditions Colorado experienced this winter, it’s possible the trail may be accessible earlier than normal. However, Gardunio advised anyone who plans to visit in the spring to monitor the weather and be prepared for evolving conditions in the alpine terrain.

Parking capacity limits

In 2025, forest service crews reconstructed the trailhead parking lot to delineate specific spots for cars and added an overflow lot for oversized vehicles or those with trailers. In total, there are 45 first-come, first-served parking spots, and if they are full, visitors should be prepared to change their plan.

“Right now, the rule is that you should be parking in designated spots only, and if there aren’t spots, then you would leave,” Gardunio said.

Parking is prohibited along County Road 7 leading up to the trailhead, and agency personnel planted trees along the road’s edge to deter drivers from stationing their cars there. “We’re going to be working on trying to watch that and see where we may need to put some more signage or build some little fences, if needed, to try and discourage that use,” Gardunio added.

When nature calls, pack it out

Speaking of the trailhead, hikers will find a new bathroom with more stalls than previously available. The rest of the wilderness, however, is no longer a toilet. Visitors now must pack out their human waste. This requirement comes after unsustainable use and improper burying on the part of innumerable people. That was probably the top issue the environment faced, Gardunio said, as she and her crew found the landscape littered with “little white toilet paper flowers.”

“Typically, you’re supposed to dig a cathole at least six inches deep and bury it,” she said. “The soils up there are really challenging, there’s so many roots and rocks. I was up there trying to plant some of the trees, and it’s really hard to dig in that soil, which is why we decided to do the pack out waste. The environment’s just really not conducive for that.”

Gardunio recommends bringing a WAG Bag or some comparable product to carry and dispose of excrement. And remember, it is also poor form to pee near lakes, which can cause contamination. Leave No Trace principles advise urinating at least 200 feet away from trails, campsites, high-use areas, and water sources.

Camping changes

As people prepare to camp overnight near the Blue Lakes, there are both new and existing rules to consider.

Dispersed camping will still be available near the Lower Blue Lake this year, and while there will not be a cap on the total number of people who stay overnight, the forest service is limiting groups to a maximum of six people. Also new this year, campers are required to carry bear-resistant food storage containers, which must be approved by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

Camping has long been prohibited at the middle and upper Blue Lakes, and that restriction remains in place. Additionally, camp spots must be at least 100 feet away from both water and trails, and avoid natural areas that are being restored. Those who cannot find a compliant spot should have a secondary plan in mind, Gardunio said.

“There is still a possibility, depending on numbers, that you could get up there and find yourself without a campsite,” she said. “So visitors should still be prepared that is the case and if they don’t have anywhere to camp, they’ll need to have another plan — either not camp up there, go back down the trail or find another spot somewhere else along the trail, which I know there’s not a lot because of how steep it is.”

Another existing rule worth repeating: Campfires are prohibited in the wilderness area. Forest Service personnel dismantled numerous man-made fire rings when they remediated the area, Gardunio said. The agency plans to build fire rings at the designated campsites it has identified for future years. Until then, do not build your own.

No permit required to hike to Colorado’s Blue Lakes in 2026

What’s next on permits

Members of Colorado’s task force on the Front Range pine beetle infestation met at Chief Hosa Lodge on Wednesday morning amid worries about the expected wide-ranging damage that hangs over hundreds of thousands of acres of Colorado forests.

“This is a wicked problem,” said John Sanderson, director of the Center for Collaborative Conservation.

He outlined some of the goals for local and state leaders: “Who’s going to do what by when?”

Colorado has about 4.2 million acres of pine forest. Approximately 3.4 million acres were affected by the last pine beetle outbreak, which began in the 1990s and faded in 2013. That was primarily in lodgepole pine.

There are 800,000 acres along the Front Range at risk this time, said the Colorado Forest Service’s state entomologist, Dan West. And this time, the pine beetle is showing up in ponderosa pine.

“If you were along the Front Range in 2013, we had the 100-year rain event, or the huge rain event, along the Front Range. And that kind of stopped the beetle in its tracks and allowed these trees to be able to draw up enough resources and start to defend themselves,” said West.

That’s not the case this time, he explained. Climate change has led to warmer temperatures, and Colorado experienced a warm, dry winter.

“Given the alignment with the precipitation, temperature, everything we’re sitting at right now, we will for sure see an increase in intensity and the footprint of the mountain pine beetle moving forward,” he explained.

While the acreage at risk may seem smaller, there is potential for very costly damage from the current outbreak. Forests along the Front Range have faced firefighting efforts for 100 years or more, but the affected area may be at greater risk, experts say.

“We’ve got property, life, egress, all the utilities, everything we’ve got along the Front Range that we’ve been protecting. But most of the ponderosa pine in these lower elevation forests are really at-risk because they’ve been there with not much disturbance, and of course, the lack of fire, which creates the mosaic of species and age diversity. And so what we’ve really seen is this kind of ever-increasing larger fuel load and or trees that are along the Front Range, so that’s in large part why I’m more worried about this one than I was in the past,” said West.

“There’s a couple real bad infestations, one along I-70. There’s more in Pine and Conifer and a little bit in between,” explained Brad Huddleston, owner and certified arborist with Splintered Forest Tree Service of Evergreen. On Wednesday, they were working to protect trees in the Ruby Ranch area.

Injecting pesticide into trees helps it uptake into the tree’s vascular system, which can save some trees and protect them longer than an external application, Huddleston explained. He pointed out a goopy pitch on the tree’s exterior as evidence of an attempted invasion. When a tree is stronger, he says it will be better able to resist the infestation. A tree with only a few visible pitch tubes still has a chance to survive.

“That’s what the grant program is trying to address, is trying to get the currently infested trees,” he explained.

That program in Jefferson County is the Mountain Pine Beetle Landowner Assistance Program. It started only a month ago, with $500,000 set aside for homeowners who contract work to fight the pine beetle. Homeowners can apply for reimbursement of 50% of the cost of contracted mitigation services, with priority going to properties of less than 40 acres.

After one month, the program is already planning to pay out $183,000 of that money after receiving 47 applications.

Evergreen resident Scott Porter has been doing work himself after pine beetles wiped out dozens of trees on his property.

“We started having trees die this summer,” he said. “When a tree died, we’d cut it down, and we probably felled close to about 70 trees.”

He bought pheromone packs and a tree injection system for pesticides.

“We have ten acres, and I’ve probably treated over a hundred trees that have not yet been killed by the beetles,” said Porter.

There could be some rough years ahead.  Porter said he hopes he’s winning the battle.