FROM FOREST -FIRES- AND FROM ANY -FIRE-
After consulting with both the local fire chief and an Alaska fire jumper, we have been advised to construct a heat resistant fire shelter to protect people in the case of a fire emergency. CMZC is located off Camino Baca Grande, the road that runs down the mountain to the town of Crestone. This means there is only one route in and out of the Zen Center. In the case that that road is impassable (remember, here fire moves up the mountain and so will come from below) we need a fire and heat resistant structure where residents and guests can shelter while the fire passes or, if necessary, while they wait to be evacuated.
Cost Estimate: $40,000
CMZC holds ‘first-in-line’ water rights to the Crestone Mountain Watershed via Spanish Creek, a creek conveniently located a short distance up the mountain from CMZC. We have been advised that we need to store 200,000 gallons of water to be able to protect the campus for 2-3 hours, the duration of time our fire consultants believe it will take for fire to move through the area. As well as the right water storage equipment we will need to install a PVC piping system below the freeze line, two fire hydrants, a pump, sprinklers on the buildings’ exteriors, and the requisite plumbing to connect the sprinkler system to the hydrants.
Cost Estimate: $390,000
An underground fire safe storage room A subterranean, fire/heat rated structure to store and protect our lineage robes, Suzuki Roshi’s correspondence, and to which our most precious and beloved ritual objects, statues, and cherished, rare pottery could be moved if there was active threat of fire with time to prepare.
Cost Estimate: $20,000
Fires in Colorado can cover vast areas of wilderness, and they can be driven by fierce 100 mph winds. In 2021, the Marshall Fire in Boulder Colorado burned over 1000 homes in a matter of minutes.
Also in 2020, a lightning bolt struck the ground on a dry summer day just south of Crestone. We were lucky that day. The fire spread just up to the trees against the mountains. In an otherwise very busy fire season in Colorado, there happened to be a lull in activity which allowed wildland fire teams to divert tankers and other resources to stop the fire in the lowlands, just before it could engulf the forest.
In Colorado, the threat of forest fires is palpable in the summer months. It is common for the mountains to be cloaked in smoke from fires across the desert southwest. Climate change is making the problem even worse. Of the 20 largest forest fires in Colorado recorded history, 11 have occurred in the past five years. The path of destruction from fires can be enormous. In 2019, the Decker Fire north of Crestone burned almost 9,000 acres, shown in the adjacent photo.
While the Decker Fire may appear large in this photo, it was actually quite small by Colorado standards. In 2020, Colorado had three fires that were all 15 – 20x larger. For reference, the entire Sangre de Cristo Range shown in this image, from Poncha Springs to the Great Sand Dunes, would have been completely destroyed by either of the two largest Colorado fires in 2020.
