The small wildfire that broke out Sunday, July 7, on a ridgeline overlooking Breckenridge’s Wellington Neighborhood was just one-eighth of a mile from the nearest home.

Hundreds of other homes as well as the historic Country Boy Mine were within a half mile of where flames ignited, according to the Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District Wildland Division Captain Matt Benedict.

But the Wellington Fire — named after the 282 home neighborhood it sparked near — never grew beyond a quarter-acre in size. The multiple agencies that descended on the fire were able to contain it in a matter of hours thanks to fuel mitigation work completed in the area 18 months earlier.

“It’s said we got lucky on this one,” Benedict said. “But that’s not actually true. It’s actually quite calculated. This fuel break was here for a reason.”

The wildfire, which sparked from an abandoned campfire, started within the 91-acre area where the Wellington Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Project had occurred. That project removed hazardous fuels from the area by clear cutting and thinning trees, including beetle-killed lodgepole pines.

Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons once called the fuels reduction work “unprecedented,” saying it would be used as a blueprint for future fuels reduction in the county. Now, FitzSimons and other officials say that the quickly quelled Wellington Fire is proof of concept: The fuels reduction project worked.

“It burned the way it should have burned,” FitzSimons said. “It burned dead fuels on the ground. It was a low, grassy fire, and the behavior acted as we’d hope it’d act, which is why it was such a quick resolve that we got it out.”

The fuels reduction work near the Wellington Neighborhood was reportedly the first time locally that there was multiagency collaboration on this type of fuels reduction work. The White River National Forest’s Dillon Ranger District collaborated with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District, Summit County Open Space and Trails, the town of Breckenridge, Summit Fire & EMS, the Colorado State Forest Service and the Colorado Division of Fire prevention and Control to complete the work.

Dillon Ranger District deputy district ranger Amanda Wheelock said that the quick response to the wildfire Sunday was another demonstration of the close collaboration between local, state and federal agencies.

With all the fuel reduction work that goes on in Summit County, Wheelock said that the Wellington Fire is an example of why this work is important.

“I think people see all this work around the county and when we haven’t had smoke in the air in a while, it can be like ‘Why are they cutting all these trees down?'” Wheelock said on Monday, July 8. “I think yesterday was a great example of why we want to work with the county and (other agencies) to protect people’s infrastructure and all the great things that make Summit County a great place to visit.”

Benedict said that crews were dispatched to the Wellington Fire around 12:30 p.m. Sunday. The first wildland engine to arrive on scene was able to establish a hose line and worked to knock down the biggest part of the fire, he said.

Winds were gusting between 10-20 mph, and humidity was at 16%, Benedict said. In other words, it was “very dry and very windy.”

Other firefighting units soon showed up on scene, and once the forward progression of the flames was stopped, crews began digging a line around the fire, Benedict said. That involves “straight up physical labor,” as firefighters use hand tools to reach mineral soil to hold the fire and keep it from growing, he said.

From there, firefighters continued to douse the wildfire with water, shuttling water up the hillside in tankers. Benedict said when he returned to the fire Monday morning, “the fire was still cold and sitting where it should have been.” He said he expects it could be declared fully out by Tuesday, June 9.

“With fuel reduction treatments like this one, we have the ability to control these fires without aircraft, without huge expense, with staff that are already on duty and rigs we already own,” Benedict said. “This is a great example of a fire in an area we knew had high hazards.”

That section of forest lands was selected for fuels reduction work not only due to its proximity to the Wellington Neighborhood but also due to the amount of recreational activity that happens there, Benedict said.

The Wellington Fire is believed to have been caused by a campfire that had not been properly extinguished. Benedict said abandoned campfires are “all too often” the cause of wildfires across the Western Slope.

“We’ve seen a pretty big uptick in unattended campfires, which is pretty frustrating for us preaching the same story over and over,” Benedict said. “The effort needs to go into putting these fires out. A water bottle is not enough. You need to drown the thing.”

An abandoned campfire was also the cause of the Interlaken Fire, which burned more than 700 acres – or more than 500 football fields – near the historic Interlaken Resort at the Twin Lakes recreation area south of Leadville in June. 

In Summit County, some of the most notorious wildfires in recent years had human origins. The Buffalo Mountain Fire in 2018, which threatened hundreds of homes in the Wildernest and Mesa Cortina neighborhoods near Silverthorne and cost more than $2.1 million to suppress, is thought to have been caused by a campfire.

The Peak 2 Fire, which prompted evacuations of more than 450 homes in the Peak 7 area and also cost about $2 million to suppress, was also determined to be human-caused.

“Wildfire remains our biggest threat here to our community,” FitzSimons said. “Just as you respect someone’s home when you visit, I hope you respect this community when you visit it and make sure that campfire is out.”