A flash drought hit southeastern Colorado in April, priming the landscape for fire just before the Sharpe fire swept into the region, causing evacuations and millions of dollars in damage.
The Sharpe fire, ignited by lightning, started in Oklahoma on Friday night and pushed north into Colorado on Sunday, spreading over more than 29,500 acres across two states. Responders had about 81% containment on the fire as of Wednesday morning, according to wildfire reports.
It wasn’t the first fire this spring: May has been much more active than predicted, said Paul Duarte with the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. Drought isn’t the only factor that contributes to wildfire conditions. Fire experts and responders also look at hot, dry and windy weather, plus everything from soil moisture to cloud cover and plant health.
But the flash drought — the rapid onset or worsening of drought over weeks rather than months — that cropped up in the southeastern plains didn’t help, said Duarte, deputy chief for the division’s wildland fire management section.
As of March 10, the southeastern plains were mostly drought free while other areas of Colorado showed signs of moderate to exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That changed when a record-breaking heat wave swept the state in late March. By March 31, southeastern Colorado as well as most of the Eastern Plains reported moderate to severe drought, characterized by stunted growth on rangeland, increased wildfires, reduced planting for farmers and more cattle sales for ranchers.
As the hot and dry conditions continued, more and more of the southeastern part of the state fell into deeper levels of drought. Huerfano, Las Animas and Baca counties in southeastern Colorado were in extreme drought as of May 12 — prime for large wildfires, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. At the same time, 96% of the state reported some level of drought with nearly 15% of Colorado in exceptional drought.
Exceptional drought, the monitor’s most severe category, is characterized by large economic losses for ranchers, farmers and recreation, dust storms and topsoil removal in addition to low reservoirs, large fires and other conditions in the less severe drought levels.
“We had those record-setting temperatures at the end of March coupled with a very dry April, and that prompted this flash drought situation,” said Allie Mazurek, a climatologist with the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University, Tuesday during a meeting of the state Water Conditions Monitoring Committee, an online gathering of fire, climate and water experts.
“Some locations that were drought free suddenly were in extreme drought status in less than a two month period,” she said.
Locals lend a hand
Then dry thunderstorms rolled through, lightning struck, and the Sharpe fire erupted in Oklahoma.
The wildfire grew from roughly 3,500 acres to more than 10,000 acres in about six hours. Wind gusts reached more than 35 mph in the area. For a few hours Sunday the entire town of Campo and its population of about 60 people was under mandatory evacuation. By Sunday night, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared a disaster emergency in response to the wildfire.
Residents sprang into action to help local, state and federal fire crews. Farmers used tractors to churn up lines in fields as fire breaks. The community members used their own water-hauling trucks to help out.
“Everybody who had something that would be helpful was involved,” Duarte said in an interview with The Colorado Sun.
Officials do not expect the fire to grow as conditions have turned to overcast skies with slightly more moisture in the air, he said. The total cost of the fire so far in Colorado was about $6 million according to early estimates.
“Even though forward progress of the fire had been stopped by the local agencies, pockets of smoldering vegetation and other materials remain near the firelines or natural barriers,” the U.S. Forest Service, which has taken over the fire, reported on Facebook on Wednesday. “These concentrated pockets of heat, or ‘hot spots,’ can breach the firelines if they are not fully extinguished.”
Colorado climate forecast
Mazurek kicked off the water conditions meeting with a dose of — relative — positivity.
“I feel like this is one of the more optimistic presentations that I’ve given in the last six months, so that’s great,” she said.
May storms brought above-average precipitation, mainly to northern Colorado, with more in the forecast, which is “fantastic” news, Mazurek said. May is the wettest month of the year for parts of the state, like northeastern Colorado.
Drought conditions, however, have not been improving.
“Our deficits are still significant, and we’re still seeing widespread drought throughout the state, despite these recent benefits over the last month or two,” she said.
Colorado has been several degrees warmer over the past seven months. The state’s snowpack melted a month early, its weather was dry in April, and its precipitation deficits are stacking up, experts said. The state would need about 190% of its normal rain to catch up before the end of the water year, Sept. 30.
“It’s not very likely for us to get back to normal,” Brian Domonkos, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said.
But the summer outlooks are a source of cautious optimism.
Looking ahead, forecasts show above-average precipitation and cooler temperatures for the next seven to 15 days, except for some areas like the Western Slope. There’s more rain in the forecast for parts of Colorado as May heads into June — as well as an active monsoon season and a super El Niño that is likely to bring moisture to Colorado in the late summer.
But with monsoon storms comes lightning, and lightning strikes can spark fires in hot and dry environments.
“We recognize that fire conditions change rapidly,” Duarte said. “The places that are getting moisture today within Colorado … we’re usually seven to 10 days out from them being available to burn.”
Since around May 10, 22 fires have started and burned 220,000 acres in southeastern Colorado, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and parts of New Mexico and Kansas. Of that, about 20,000 acres burned in Colorado. That’s more than the forecasts predicted, Duarte said during the water conditions meeting.
In 2025, a more normal year, Colorado had 3,722 wildfires that burned about 270,900 acres, he told the gathering.
In June, late spring conditions driven by drought will likely shift most of the fire concerns west of the Continental Divide in Colorado, Duarte said. He’s watching fuel conditions for impacts from an April freeze that stunted or killed budding plant life, leaving it dormant or drying out in the warmer-than-usual weather.
“The more intense the drought, the more receptive the fuels are,” Duarte said in an interview.
By July, western Colorado and all of Utah are forecast to have above-average fire danger. Considering the dry conditions, those fires might be more severe, causing damage deeper into root systems and soils. More fires also mean more competition for firefighting resources, he told experts gathered at the water conditions meeting.
“When we have multiple fires going in different parts of the country, there is a large demand for aircraft, hand crews and all of those things. That leads to limited resource availability,” Duarte said. “So we are expecting an above-average fire season as we move forward.”
This story previously appeared in The Colorado Sun.
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