Is Your Hunting Spot Burned?

With Colorado Antelope Opener on Monday, you better be close to having everything you need for your 2016 Big Game Hunt. One thing you don’t want to forget, is to check any potential closures due to forest fires that can restrict or completely block your access this year. With large portions of the West above normal for fire risk, you’d hate to drive half way across the country to be greeted with a closed road sign.

Current Fire Perimeters

Use the map below to see if you are in fire risk. Fire Perimeters in Yellow.

The current perimeters of active fires for 2016 from GeoMac.gov WMS Service (updated regularly by them)

Where to get more Information

Just because your spot isn’t burned, you can still be subject to road, federal and state land closures. The place to get current fire information is inciweb, which is an interagency all-risk incident information management system. Click here to go to inciweb.nwcg.gov

Example Incident Page for a Colorado Fire

Instructions on finding data on InciWeb:

• To get a list of active fires by state, use the drop down box found at the upper right. 
• From here you’ll be able to click on any of the Incidents under the “Incident” field to get more information about the fire.
• Once inside of an incident, you can get all the information you need about the fire.
• Be sure to click on ‘Maps’ in the menu bar below the Incident Name to see any maps pertaining to road or even Public Land Closures

Things to Check

From these maps, you may run into areas that are completely closed off to the public even if they are miles from the actual burn area.  The reasons are usually a combination of your safety, as well as giving the fire crews space to work. You definitely don’t want to get caught driving around any road closures or being on public lands that are closed. For more information about the closures, be sure to contact the public land owner (i.e. Local BLM, Local Forest Service) for the area affected.

Other Resources

If you’re interested in getting Google Earth Files go to geomac.gov and click on the ‘Download’ button under “Download Dynamic KMZ” to get the same perimeters above in Google Earth.