east troublesome fire

i spent most of 2021 photographing different areas burned by the east troublesome fire within rocky mountain national park. as my explorations proceeded, the emotions of sadness and the grief of losing places which i was intimately familiar were slowly being replaced with feelings of curiosity. eventually, i came to a place of acceptance.

the fire began on october 14, 2020. in a 24-hour period between october 21 and 22, 100+ mph winds helped the fire grow from 19,000 acres to over 187,000+ acres. the largest fire in colorado history prior to 2020 was the hayman fire, which burned 138,114 acres. the east troublesome fire blew from tree line on the western side of the continental divide, over large distances of tundra and rock, over the continental divide and past even more tundra and rock on the eastern side of the continental divide, to trigger a fire on the east side of the divide, racing through the park and towards the town of estes park. this all occurred after numerous homes and unfortunately, some lives were lost in and around the town of grand lake on the west side of the park. were it not for a well-timed snowstorm bringing both cold and humidity, helping to supress the fire, estes park may be a very different town today.

in the end, the east troublesome fire burned 193,812 acres. it and the nearby, cameron peak fire from 2020 combined to burn approximately ten percent of rocky mountain national park as well as miles and miles of national forest land and countless structures, in addition to the two fatalities.

these are just a few of the images i’ve captured of the burn scars.