Click the link to read the article on the Circle of Blue website (Zara Gounden & Fraser Byers):

June 7, 2023

In Uruguay, a mounting crisis is unfolding as ‘Day Zero’ – when the public water supply is depleted – draws closer in Montevideo.

On May 31 the National Administration of State Sanitary Works (OSE) announced that, without significant rainfall, the city of Montevideo would run out of water by June 22. The capital city of 1.4 million residents has plunged into uncertainty, triggering demonstrations.

Desperate officials are taking extraordinary measures in response. The OSE is alleviating dependence on the country’s largest freshwater reserve, the Paso Severino, by adding salt water from the River Plate estuary into the public water supply.

Montevideo’s water emergency joins a growing list of major metropolitan areas affected by extreme weather events that lead to dire water shortages. The El Nino Southern oscillation in the Pacific, in combination with the effects of climate change, have led to a global surge in such Day Zero events.

In Cape Town, South Africa. Day Zero scarcity hounded the city in recent years. Public protests demanded more responsible water resource management and a shift in water allocation from agriculture, which was initially granted 40% of the total water reserves during the drought.

Last year, Day Zero occurred in Monterrey, Mexico. Taps in the city went dry. Tanker trucks became the primary means to provide water to communities. Public demonstrations over water shortages also occurred in major cities in Brazil, Iran, and India.

Montevideo’s strategy to add salt water to supplement and extend its fresh water supply may be globally unique. But – the high levels of sodium and chloride in the region’s tap water are more than double the limits suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO). Uruguay has waived taxes on imported bottled water, and doctors have been empowered to provide prescriptions for free bottled water to pregnant women and individuals with chronic illnesses. OSE has even begun drilling for groundwater inside city parks to provide nearby hospitals with reliable supplies.

Despite such urgent actions, organizers such as Federico Kreimerman, president of the workers union at OSE, called for a greater response to limit the effects of the drought. Speaking to Reuters, Kreimerman blamed the current circumstances on a confluence of factors – low rainfall, industrial overuse, and weak public investment. On Twitter he wrote: “The government cannot make it rain, but it can take measures so that workers are not the losers. Waive fees, regulate bottled water. Otherwise, the water crisis will increase social inequalities.”

Click the link to read the article on the Wyoming Public Radio website (Caitlin Tan). Here’s an excerpt:

A once in 500-year flood event devastated Yellowstone National Park one year ago this month. A lot of infrastructure was destroyed – roads, bridges and buildings literally were swept into rivers. Researchers have since studied the damage, hoping to learn lessons. This includes a specialized group of scientists who study civil infrastructure immediately in the wake of a disaster. Bret Lingwall, an associate professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Calvin Tohm, who is a graduate student at the school, were at Yellowstone last year collecting data…

What we’re essentially getting is the topography, the shape, the morphology, of the damage. So be that a washed out bridge, or a landslide or a rock fall, or whatever the damage is. We’re collecting what the surface looks like, then later researchers can come back and look at subsurface information. We also collect samples, we collect soil and rock samples to take back to the lab for laboratory testing and further analysis… — Bret Lingwall

On the physical infrastructure side, we’ve got conclusions about the physical construction of bridges, and things like the wing walls, which protect abutments from erosion. Also, placement of bridges – giving plenty of room for the rivers to do what the river wants to do and move within its floodplain. On the policy side, these events were yet another critical data point in the growing database of our knowledge. As a science and engineering community, we’re learning that the famous 100-year flood exceedance probability criteria for design is probably insufficient for the way our communities are constructed, and how they actually operate. Higher standards are likely required due to the increasing what we call ‘fragility of our communities.’ So the 100-year standard was selected many, many, many years ago. And we’ve learned a lot since then, and these floods were important data to contribute to the efforts that are underway in the various code and organizational committees across the country to raise the flood standards for infrastructure, instead of from 100-year to maybe 250, 500 or 700-year flood events. Because these are the events that are more damaging. There’s just more losses than we probably want to tolerate as a community… — Bret Lingwall

But really, when it comes to any community that is in a mountainous riverine environment where you have rivers, creeks and streams that seem small and tame on a year-to-year basis, but what a fury that can be unleashed in these extreme flood events.

Click the link to read the article on The Washington Post website (Maxine Joselow and Vanessa Montalbano). Here’s an excerpt:

Today [June 12, 2023] marks the beginning of an unprecedented two-week climate trial in Montana. In the first youth-led climate case to go to trial in the United States, 16 young people are accusing the government of Montana of violating their right to a “clean and healthful environment,” which is enshrined in the state constitution, by promoting fossil fuel development…

“A strong decision could have ripple effects and inspire more climate litigation around the world,” Michael Gerrard, faculty director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said in an email.

The Details

The 16 young people — represented by Oregon-based nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust — filed their lawsuit in March 2020. At the time, their ages ranged from 2 to 18. The case, Held v. Montana, is named for Rikki Held, the only plaintiff who was 18 at the time. Held grew up on a 7,000-acre cattle ranch and saw how the effects of climate change — including raging wildfires and relentless droughts — threatened her family’s business. The lawsuit lists many other ways that climate change has harmed the young challengers. For example, it says dangerous air quality from wildfire smoke has made it difficult for another plaintiff to breathe.

The youths are seeking a verdict that Montana — the country’s fifth-largest coal producer and 12th-largest oil producer — has unlawfully approved fossil fuel projects without considering their climate impact. Such a ruling could require state agencies to weigh these effects before permitting any more oil, gas and coal development. It could also give more teeth to the state constitution and others like it. Two other states — New York and Pennsylvania — have established constitutional rights to a healthy environment by adopting “green amendments.” More states could follow.

“To have a court say that these plaintiffs are having their constitutional rights violated would be a bellwether for the rest of the country,” said Mat dos Santos, general counsel and managing attorney with Our Children’s Trust.

Click the link to read the guest column on the Colorado Newsline website (Sammy Herdman):

On the last day of Colorado’s 2023 legislative session, Senate Bill 23-266 was signed by leaders of the state Senate and House. The bill limits the sale of a class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” which are known for killing bees and other pollinators. The governor signed the bill a little over one week later, making Colorado the ninth state in the country to take steps against neonics.

Specifically, SB-266 requires the Colorado commissioner of agriculture to designate neonics as a “limited use pesticide.” Only licensed dealers will be authorized to sell neonics, which excludes the average home and garden store, significantly reducing the use of neonics in residential areas.

Neonics are the most common class of pesticide in the world, even though several studies suggest neonics provide negligible economic benefits to corn and soy crops. Neonics are often applied via seed treatments, which distributes the chemical throughout the entire plant as it grows. As a result, neonics cannot be washed off the surface of plants prior to eating. This quality, combined with their ubiquity, is perhaps the reason that neonics are the most prevalent pesticide in infant and baby food. While there are documented cases of neonics’ toxicity to humans, there is no scientific consensus regarding the chemicals’ threat to human health.

However, neonics’ toxicity to bees, our food supply, and the country’s economy is very well understood.

Bees pollinate 75% of the fruits, nuts and vegetables in the United States, and contribute $24 billion to the U.S. economy. Bees are often exposed to neonics while gathering pollen or drinking nectar from crops in agricultural fields, clover on golf courses, and even ornamental flowers in residential neighborhoods. If the bees don’t consume a fatal dose, the poison interferes with key grooming and sleep behaviors, leading to a slow death or lack of reproduction.

The number of bees in Colorado has declined by more than 70% in the past 20 years. Bee populations have been decimated by pesticides, habitat fragmentation and competition with invasive species, such as the European honey bee.

Although it’s an important agricultural pollinator, the familiar European honey bee is not representative of our country’s incredible bee diversity. And the notoriety of honey bees obscures the real bee-pocalypse occurring in the U.S. and Colorado: native bees’ slow descent into extinction. Colorado alone has 950 native bee species, placing the state in the top five for most biodiverse bee habitats in the country. Because Colorado’s native bees, including bumblebees, sweat bees and leaf-cutting bees, do the yeoman’s share of pollinating native plants, their fate will affect all of Colorado’s ecosystems. That’s why Colorado’s induction into the club of states working to restrict neonics is vital.

Eight states besides Colorado restrict the use of neonics, either by legislative or administrative action. The restrictions vary in scope — some apply only to residential areas and others, such as in New Jersey, prohibit the use of neonics on lawns, golf courses, and more. There have been no successful bans on the use of neonics in agriculture.

If history is any indication, there’s little chance that the agriculture industry will ever be subjected to neonic restrictions. The powerful agriculture lobby has doggedly avoided environmental regulations for decades, paying for exemptions from the Clean Water Act, and securing reporting exemptions from the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. That nearly half of Colorado’s land is devoted to agriculture underscores the importance of SB-266 — if state leaders can’t make Colorado’s farms safe for bees, it’s imperative that they target low-hanging fruit by discouraging the use of neonics in residential areas.

SB-266 isn’t a complete reprieve for our state’s bees, but it is a start. What’s the next step? Hopefully, a ban on all uses of neonics, except for the stubborn agriculture industry.

Click the link to read the article on the Carbon Brief website:

Hundreds of wildfires have been burning across Canada in what has been called an “unprecedented” start to the nation’s fire season.

Huge clouds of smoke from the blaze have blown thousands of kilometres down to the eastern US, shrouding cities such as New York and Washington DC in an orange haze and causing levels of toxic air pollution to reach record levels.

Scientists have been quick to make the link with climate change. The hot and dry conditions resulting from rising global temperatures are known to make wildfires more extreme.

Many US commentators said the fires should act as a “wake-up call” for climate action. 

Meanwhile, the nation’s influential right-leaning media channels were quick to downplay the severity of the toxic smoke filling US streets.

In this article, Carbon Brief examines the role of climate change in the Canadian wildfires and how the media has responded.

What is happening with the wildfires in Canada?

In late April, forest fires began in British Columbia and Alberta, expanding to cover nine of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories. While wildfires are fairly common in the country’s western provinces, fires have opened new fronts, spreading to the eastern provinces of Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario, according to ABC News. 

Quebec has been particularly affected, with multiple being started by lightning strikes, ABC continues. As of Tuesday 6 June, there were around 160 forest fires, which displaced some 10,000 people in the province alone, it added. 

“The distribution of fires from coast to coast this year is unusual. At this time of the year, fires usually occur only on one side of the country at a time, most often that being in the west,” Michael Norton, an official with Canada’s Natural Resources ministry told Reuters.

The fires are taking place after the provinces of Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec experienced record heat this year, according to the Washington Post. Edmonton in Alberta, for example, saw average temperatures 6C above normal in May, hitting 17.2C, according to CBC.  

Canada’s Atlantic region has also been experiencing droughts since February, with, for example, the town of Sydney, Nova Scotia, receiving only 15% of normal moisture in April, the paper says. Parts of the Atlantic region, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, recorded their driest April on record, it adds. 

As such, by the end of April, 49% of the Atlantic Region was classified as “abnormally dry or in moderate drought”, including 77% of the region’s agricultural landscape, according to the Canadian government.

Such conditions made wildfires more likely, according to the Washington Post, although it also noted that a long-running forest management practice of fire suppression in many provinces has caused combustible vegetation that fuels fires to build up and dry out on the forest floor, playing a role in the severity. 

Forests cover about a third of the total land area or 3.62m km2 of Canada. As of Thursday, around 2,300 wildfires had burned roughly 42,897 km2, according to Reuters. The newswire says this is more than 15 times the 10-year average for this time of year. 

More than half of the 437 active fires across Canada – some 248 – were out of control as of Thursday morning, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC). With the hottest and driest period of the year still to come, the country is on track for its “worst ever” wildfire season, according to Reuters.

Across Canada, more than 20,000 people have been evacuated as firefighters continue to tackle the blazes, according to the Associated Press. To support this, firefighters from the US, South African, Australia, New Zealand, France, Portugal and Spain have been deployed in the country, Reuters reports. 

A day after he spoke to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, US president Joe Biden said in a statement on Thursday:

“Since May, more than 600 US firefighters, support personnel and firefighting assets have been deployed, working alongside Canadian firefighters to tackle what is likely to be the worst fire season in Canadian history and one that has huge impacts here in the US.”

Earlier this week, the Canadian government outlined a number of measures it was taking in response to the wildfires, including approving requests for federal assistance from the provinces of Alberta and Nova Scotia, partnering with provincial and territorial governments, and launching a “Wildfire Resilient Futures Initiative” with a proposed investment of $284m.

In a statement released alongside the announcements, Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, made a clear link between the threat of wildfires and global warming. He said:

“We are already seeing one of the worst wildfire seasons on record and we must prepare for a long summer. The government of Canada is stepping up to the request for assistance from Quebec and will immediately begin mobilising Canadian Armed Forces, firefighting resources and assistance with planning to support the wildfire response in the province.

“The threat of increased fires due to climate change is one of the many reasons our government is developing a robust national adaptation strategy with all levels of government and Indigenous groups, so we can be sure our communities are well prepared for the impacts of climate change.”

What are the wider effects across North America?

Haze blanketed much of the eastern US this week as prevailing winds carried the smoke southwards from Canada. 

At least 100 million Americans – nearly one-third of the US population – were under air-quality alerts on Wednesday, with the smoke spreading as far west as Chicago and as far south as Atlanta, according to USA Today. 

The north-east, including major population centres such as New York City, Philadelphia and Washington DC, bore the brunt of the haze. Reuters reported that New York City temporarily had the world’s worst air quality of any major city on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, CBS News Philadelphia noted that that city now had the world’s worst air quality.

The Toronto Star wrote on Thursday that the city was “brac[ing] for what might be the worst air quality levels it has ever seen”, warning readers that Toronto’s air quality index might approach the levels seen in New York the previous day. 

Heatmap News wrote that air quality in the eastern US “has reached the worst level since 2005, when modern records began”. The piece noted that the air quality on the east coast “was comparable” to that regularly seen on the west coast during fire season, but added that “it is unheard of for such toxic air to afflict such a densely populated part of the country”. 

The Atlantic advised: “It is, to put it lightly, an absolutely terrible time to go outside.” The piece noted that “masks are being urged as a precaution against the thick, choking plumes of smoke from Canada”. 

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded or otherwise restricted flights into several east coast airports on Wednesday and Thursday, according to CNN. 

All along the east coast, sporting events – including baseball games, indoor basketball games and horse racing – were cancelled or postponed due to unsafe air quality on Wednesday and Thursday, the Associated Press reported. 

The Washington Post reported that several New York City theatres had also cancelled performances on Wednesday. The White House postponed its pride month event, originally scheduled for Friday, to Saturday, according to Bloomberg.

Reuters wrote that “schools up and down the east coast called off outdoor activities, including sports, field trips and recesses”; New York City public schools announced on Thursday that Friday would be a remote-instruction day. Washington, DC suspended some non-essential city services, such as roadwork and rubbish collection, according to the local outlet DCist. 

Axios reported that the US had dispatched more than 600 “firefighting personnel”, as well as firefighting equipment, to help battle the blazes in Canada.

US senator Bernie Sanders and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both Democrats, took to Twitter to “issue stark warning[s]” about the connection between the wildfires and climate change, the Independent wrote. 

Meanwhile, the New Republic criticised US representative Marc Molinaro, a Republican, for saying “this isn’t the moment to start lecturing people about the science of climate change”. The New Republic wrote: 

“It’s almost comical the extent Republican politicians will go to deny reality…While nearly a third of the country is at risk of breathing in a dark haze straight out of dystopia, Republicans are still lecturing us for having the nerve to say enough is enough.”

Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?

There is a wide body of evidence to show that climate change is making wildfire conditions more likely in many parts of the world. 

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2021 said that greenhouse gas emissions have “led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes” – such as floods, drought and wildfires. 

For example, dry conditions intensified by climate change can cause fires to spread more quickly over large areas. 

The IPCC said with high confidence that “compound hot and dry conditions become more probable in nearly all land regions as global mean temperature increases”. 

Similar conditions can also be created by long periods of drought, Dr Cristina Santin, a wildfires researcher from Swansea University previously told Carbon Brief. 

There is an increasing risk of forest fires in North America, the IPCC said, and the fire season across this region “expands dramatically”, if global warming exceeds 2C. 

In the western US, climate change has made – and will continue to make – fires larger and more destructive, Carbon Brief reported in 2018. 

No attribution studies have so far made a climate connection with the ongoing wildfires in Canada. 

But previous studies have looked at the link between climate change and other extreme weather events. One study found that climate change made a 2020 Siberian heatwave at least 600 times more likely. This heat broke temperature records and led to wildfires. 

Additionally, the IPCC said that wildland fire has been “identified as a top climate-change risk facing Canada”. 

[…]

News outlets and experts have also been making the climate connection in recent days. 

Mohammadreza Alizadeh, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal, told the Guardian that the Canadian fires are a “really clear sign of climate change”. 

“The climate signal is very strong” given the size and severity of the fires, according to Robert Scheller, a professor of forestry at North Carolina State University, quoted by BBC News.

Experts have “pointed to a warmer and drier spring than normal” as the reason for heightened wildfire conditions in Canada, another BBC News piece said, adding: 

“Fires across Canada have already burned more than 3.8m hectares (9.4m acres) of land – an area 12 times the 10-year average for this time of year.”

According to Al Jazeera, New York City mayor Eric Adams told a press briefing: 

“While this may be the first time we’ve experienced something like this on this magnitude, let’s be clear: it is not the last. Climate change [has] accelerated these conditions.”

It is “unusual” for fires to occur “from coast to coast” at this time of the year, according to Michael Norton, an official with Canada’s Natural Resources ministry. He told Reuters: 

“The rate of increase of area burned is also high…if this rate continues, we could hit record levels for area burned this year.”

The newswire further quoted Yan Boulanger, a researcher with Natural Resources Canada, who said that “partially because of climate change, we’re seeing trends toward increasing burned area throughout Canada”.

“Higher-than-normal” fire activity is possible across most of Canada during this year’s wildfire season due to ongoing drought and expected high temperatures, the country’s government said. 

The fires “remind us that carbon pollution carries a cost on our society, as it accelerates climate change”, Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, said on Twitter. 

Elsewhere, however, a Yahoo News article said that, “while it may seem obvious to blame climate change for these extreme conditions, one expert clarifies that there’s more factors at play”.

Carbon Brief’s climate science contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather took a closer look at studies on Canada’s wildfires and climate change. 

He wrote on his Substack that, while climate attribution studies are needed to assess the current fires, “it is clear that these sort of events are likely to become more common as the world warms”.

(For more details on how climate change affects wildfires, read Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer from 2020.)

How has the media responded to the wildfires?

Media in Canada, the US and around the world covered the fires, the smoke and the eerie orange tint that settled on swathes of the eastern seaboard.

However, much of the ensuing commentary on the wildfires came from the US east coast. The location of some of the world’s most influential news organisations was blanketed in smoke, giving many journalists and news anchors first-hand experience of the event.

An editorial in the Washington Post said the fires were a sign that the US had to ramp up its preparations for climate change – for example, by assessing wildfire risks in areas previously considered too wet. It concluded:

“In some ways, the haze could be making everyone see more clearly what lies ahead.”

The idea that the wildfires should galvanise climate action was a common one. “Will nature’s smoke alarm serve as an American wakeup call?” asked Will Bunch, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In his Washington Post column, Eugene Robinson wrote that, “once again, nature is sending us an unambiguous message”.

Concluding her account of a day spent in a smoke-choked New York, Carolyn Kormann wrote in the New Yorker: “We know the story of the climate crisis…Yet we live as though we do not, and we breathe the consequences.”

In his newsletter for the New York Times, David Wallace-Wells wrote that the fires could mark a shift in perceptions “away from the American West as the fountainhead of wildfire”. 

From his home in Vermont, veteran climate activist and author Bill McKibben wrote in The Crucial Years, his Substack, that the fires brought people in the US closer to how “a huge percentage of the world’s people breathe every single day of their lives”. (He was referencing cities such as New Delhi and Beijing that have high rates of air pollution.)

Some, such as former Atlantic national correspondent James Fallows, pointed out what they viewed as a media bias towards the events on the east coast of the US. 

Responding to this in his New York Times column, Paul Krugman wrote:

“That’s a minor issue compared with the importance of learning from these crises, now that enough influential people have seen with their own eyes what’s happening.”

Meanwhile, as clouds of smoke billowed through some of the nation’s largest cities, many right-leaning US news outlets responded with a shrug. Their attitude was summarised by a Rolling Stone article titled: “Right-wing media is saying the wildfire smoke is good, actually.”

The article quoted lobbyist Steve Milloy, a “big oil mouthpiece who has long denied climate change”, who appeared on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show and said:

“This doesn’t kill anybody, it doesn’t make anybody cough, this is not a health event…This has got nothing to do with climate. This is wildfire smoke. This is natural.”

Another Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro said it was “insanity” for people to wear masks to protect themselves from wildfire smoke. She also referenced a Fox News line that left-leaning politicians, such as Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were “seiz[ing] on” the fires to push for a Green New Deal.

According to the Daily Beast, Sean Hannity, another popular Fox News host, asked a guest on the show if people complaining about breathing difficulties due to the smoke were merely “snowflakes”.

The NGO Media Matters for America summarised the coverage in a piece titled “with Canadian wildfires, Fox News follows its Covid playbook” – referencing the channel’s tendency to downplay the risks of the pandemic.

Greg Kelly, a host on another right-leaning news channel, Newsmax, attributed the smoke in New York to “our woke friends to the north in Canada” and also played down the risks, describing the smoke as “not an unpleasant odour, to be honest”.

An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal also took the opportunity of the fires to take aim at US climate policy, stating:

“Progressives are proclaiming that the smoky skies engulfing the eastern US from Canadian wildfires are another sign that the climate apocalypse is nigh. Instead, they’re a reminder that government policies to mitigate the impact of natural disasters matter more than those to reduce CO2 emissions.”

The newspaper said land management policies ”such as prescribed burns” to prevent wildfires spreading “would reduce CO2 emissions more than offshore wind or electric-vehicle mandates”. Australian columnist Miranda Devine wrote a piece in the New York Post echoing this sentiment, calling links to climate change “propaganda”. 

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Newline website (Sara Wilson):

The Marshall Fire in Boulder County was caused by two distinct ignitions, one sparked by an unmoored Xcel Energy power line and another from embers of a week-old trash fire at the nearby Twelve Tribes property, that eventually merged into the larger fire, investigators announced Thursday.

The Marshall Fire began on Dec. 30, 2021, amid intense high winds and quickly became the most destructive fire in Colorado history, burning over 6,000 acres, damaging more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County, Louisville and Superior, and killing two people.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with the Boulder district attorney and other agencies, concluded its investigation nearly 18 months later.

“I recognize that the investigation into the cause of origin of the Marshall Fire has taken a significant amount of time to complete,” Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson said at a Thursday press conference. “While it took time, I can confidently say that we know what happened and why.”

District Attorney Michael Dougherty said that no criminal charges will be filed against Xcel or Twelve Tribes residents.

One of the fires responsible started at the Marshall Mesa Trailhead, likely due to sparks from a sagging Xcel power line that cast hot particles onto surrounding dry vegetation. The investigation found that the high winds caused the power line to disconnect from its pole and contact other lines.

Johnson said underground coal fires can’t be ruled out as a cause, but the “unmoored” power line is likely to blame.

In the days after the Marshall Fire, Xcel reattached the line to its crossarm despite an Xcel-issued “do not repair order,” to restore power during a freeze. Investigators didn’t find evidence that Xcel repaired the line in order to hide evidence or wrongdoing.

Dougherty said investigators found no evidence of criminal recklessness or negligence by Xcel.

“This is a different discussion and a different decision, if that wire was worn or shoddy or they had maintenance issues in the past. There was no such record of that, no indication of that,” he said.

Xcel disputes the claim that its power line caused the ignition.

“We strongly disagree with any suggestion that Xcel Energy’s power lines caused the second ignition, which according to the report started 80 to 110 feet away from Xcel Energy’s power lines in an area with underground coal fire activity. Xcel Energy did not have the opportunity to review and comment on the analyses relied on by the Sheriff’s Office and believes those analyses are flawed and their conclusions are incorrect,” an Xcel spokesman said in a statement Thursday. They said that after reviewing maintenance records, they believe everything was properly maintained.

There is still the possibility of civil charges against Xcel.

“The information we’ve shared today and conclusions we’ve reached could certainly play a role in civil litigation,” Doughery said.

Twelve Tribes

The other ignition point was at 5325 Eldorado Springs Drive, the site of the property owned by the Twelve Tribes religious group.

Investigators say residents at the property started a fire there on Dec. 24, 2021, to burn old fencing material, tree branches and other junk. Firefighters responded to the property that day, but they were unconcerned with the legal, intentional fire and were satisfied with the residents’ plan to let the fire burn out and extinguish it by burying it. The conditions on Dec. 24 were rainy, damp and cool. The winds were calm and there wasn’t a “red flag” warning in effect.

Less than a week later, however, winds picked up drastically and uncovered smoldering material from the old fire. That ignited a new fire, about an hour before the fire at the trailhead began 2,000 feet away, investigators say. Winds were blowing east on the day of the Marshall Fire. Though the trailhead fire began after the Twelve Tribes fire, it is located south and west of the property. Eventually, the two fires merged, though investigators can’t pinpoint when or where.

Investigators did not find evidence that residents at the property were criminally reckless or had knowledge that their legal, controlled burn on Dec. 24 would reignite and cause the Marshall Fire.

“This fire was terribly destructive and traumatic for so many people. We make our decisions on criminal charges based on evidence, not based on emotion,” Dougherty said. “If we were to tell you that we were filing charges, it would be wrong and it would be unethical.”

Since the Marshall Fire, Boulder County has changed its fire burning ordinance to say that fires should be extinguished with both water and dirt, not just dirt, as the Twelve Tribes residents did.

“I know personally the last 18 months have been hard and not having answers creates stress and challenges that we don’t need,” Johnson, who lost his own home in the fire, said. “And I hope that now we can focus on rebuilding our lives and getting back to our homes and our community.”

The investigative summary and other documents related to the Marshall Fire are posted on the Boulder County Sheriff’s website.