Click the link to read the article on the Canyon Courier website (Jan Reuter). Here’s an excerpt:
August 13, 2025
Fran and Terry Haury were eating lunch in their mountaintop Conifer-area home July 22 when thunder and lightning struck.
“It was so instantaneous, and the noise was so loud, we didn’t even realize there was a light flash,” Terry Haury said. “I didn’t see any smoke, but another neighbor called and said they had. Sure enough, a tree was on fire. Then it just blew up, and the fire was higher than the trees.”
That was the start of the White Hawk fire. Due to the steep, rocky terrain and that day’s windy conditions, the blaze had the potential to be disastrous. Instead, just more than a single acre burned…Neighbors, firefighters and state officials attribute its minimal impact to two factors: mitigation and a swift attack…
A decade before, eight neighboring landowners used a grant and pooled their funds to pay the balance for the Jefferson Conservation District to mitigate 235 acres. JCD assists private landowners with planning and implementing forest and noxious weed management projects to restore ecosystems and mitigate wildfire hazards…Firefighter response was also crucial. Elk Creek Fire, the Conifer Wildland Division, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and a Douglas County helicopter equipped with a water tank joined forces at the site…The JCD’s efforts, which also include a slash program, are voluntary. It exists to help private landowners address resource concerns about wildlife habitat, wildfire, water and invasive species…JCD’s preference is to mitigate across multiple landowner boundaries to make a treated area as large as possible. That magnifies the positive impact on wildlife and wildfire mitigation, Stephens said.