Wildfires pose danger to cliff dwellings, artifacts

TOWOAC, Colo. – Two fast-spreading wildfires threatened ancient cliff dwellings in southwestern Colorado and forced the shutdown Tuesday of some guided tours on tribal land.

One fire on the Ute Mountain Ute Indian reservation doubled in size to 300 acres, authorities said. The other, a 2,500-acre blaze, burned about five miles away near Mesa Verde National Park, also on Ute Mountain Ute land.

“World-class archaeological resources are threatened,” said Tom Rice, the tribe’s resource adviser.

The smaller fire was 40 percent contained by Tuesday night; the larger blaze, sparked by lightning last week, was 75 percent contained.

The threatened cliff dwellings date from the Puebloan period, from 600 A.D. to 1300 A.D., and the area holds petroglyphs, stone tools, pottery and other artifacts, making fighting the blazes more difficult.

Fire crews attacked from the air to avoid damaging fragile artifacts with bulldozers, and archaeologists were brought in to help preserve artifacts.

The National Interagency Fire Center on Tuesday was tracking 29 large wildfires burning in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The largest was a 183,000-acre range fire burning in the sparsely populated desert region of southwest Idaho.