A human-caused wildfire burning on a Colorado 14er south of Leadville has closed access to trails in the area, including access to the summit, according to the Pike-San Isabel National Forest.

The La Plata Fire, burning on 82 acres on the 14,343-foot La Plata Peak in the Sawatch Range, sparked below tree line in dead trees near the main trail to the summit, Colorado Incident Management Team public information officer Tracy LeClair said Thursday.

The wildfire was first reported on Sunday. No evacuations have been issued.

“Right now, firefighters are focusing on making sure this doesn’t grow like some of the others in the western part of the state have done,” LeClair said. 

With 0% containment, the wildfire was burning in “rugged terrain with heavy dead and down timber” in a difficult-to-access section of the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, according to InciWeb.Wildfire.gov. There were 129 personnel responding to the fire on Thursday.

Wildfire officials believe the fire to be human-caused, but what exactly sparked it is still under investigation, LeClair said.

La Plata Peak, one of Colorado’s 58 peaks above 14,000 feet, has been estimated to have between 3,000 and 7,000 hikers climb it each hiking season in recent years, according to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative.

There have been two helicopters on scene assisting with firefighting: a larger Chinook helicopter that has been dropping water on the wildfire and a smaller helicopter that has been carrying hoses to firefighters in steep terrain, LeClair said.

Winds so far this week have pushed the wildfire around, with the blaze at times growing in multiple different directions, especially when winds have aligned with drainages and dry fuels, she said.

“The good news is some of (the fire) is starting to bump up into scree fields and then, on the north side, there is an avalanche chute,” LeClair said. “So that’s working in our favor because those are areas where there’s no fuel to burn.”

A full closure map has not yet been posted, but access to both the La Plata North Trailhead off Colorado Highway 82 and the La Plata South Trailhead off Chaffee County Road 390 is closed until further notice due to the wildfire operations, LeClair said. 

La Plata Peak, one of Colorado’s 58 peaks above 14,000 feet, has been estimated to have between 3,000 and 7,000 hikers climb it each hiking season in recent years, according to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative.

The wildfire is burning about 4 miles from the Twin Lakes Recreation Area. The U.S. Forest Service is asking visitors to avoid the Dexter Point and Sunnyside day-use areas, which are being used as an incident command post for emergency responders. 

LeClair noted that the wildfire is burning only a few miles away from where an abandoned campfire sparked the Interlaken Fire last year.

Over the course of almost two weeks, the Interlaken Fire burned 704 acres on the south shore of Twin Lakes, threatening historic structures near the Interlaken Resort, which firefighters managed to protect, and prompting recreational closures.

“At this point, firefighters are just trying to do everything they can to keep (the La Plata Fire) from getting established and growing any larger,” LeClair said. “The last thing we want is for it to take off like (the Interlaken Fire) did.”