Colorado Parks and Wildlife has closed every trail at Fishers Peak State Park near Trinidad as the Post Fire, a fast-moving brush fire on the Raton Mesa, has burned 4,705 acres and pushed into the park's southern boundary. The closure comes just one day after officials had celebrated the opening of 9 new miles of trail at the state park, a milestone that instead became overshadowed by evacuation orders and firefighting operations along the Colorado-New Mexico border.
The fire appears to have started Wednesday night on the Raton Mesa roughly seven miles southeast of Trinidad, according to CBS Colorado, which first reported the trail closures. Separate fire-tracking data reviewed by WildFire Explorer indicates the blaze ignited naturally on private land atop the mesa late on August 11 or in the early hours of August 12, quickly burning an initial 1,000 acres before racing across steep, remote terrain that has made ground access difficult for crews. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the fire had not yet reached the peak itself, but confirmed it had moved into the park's southern area, prompting the agency to close all trails to protect public safety and keep the ground clear for firefighting teams, per the station's report.
A Region Already Stretched Thin By Fire
The Post Fire did not ignite in isolation. It was part of a broader lightning-caused outbreak across Las Animas County between August 11 and 12 that also sparked the Sheep Pen Fire, the High Fence Fire, and the Gotera Fire, according to The Gazette. Those three blazes burned 400 acres, 30 acres, and 10 acres, respectively, spreading local and regional emergency resources across Colorado's largest county by land area even as the Post Fire grew.
Although the Post Fire itself has stayed on the Colorado side of the line, officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of Sugarite Canyon State Park in New Mexico to protect public safety and shield a municipal watershed near Raton, as reported by KRTN Enchanted Air Radio. Sugarite Canyon connects directly to state wildlife areas adjoining Fishers Peak, illustrating how a single ignition on the mesa turned into a cross-border emergency touching two states' park systems and a public water supply.
Trail Milestones Interrupted Mid-Celebration
The timing has been especially jarring for a park still building out its identity. Local officials were set to mark the opening of 9 miles of newly completed trail on August 12, pushing the young park's total trail network past 20 miles, according to the Denver Gazette. Within a day, that expansion was overtaken by the wildfire closure that shut down access to the entire park.
The disruption also follows closely on the heels of another milestone. Just days earlier, Colorado Parks and Wildlife had reopened the park's 9,633-foot summit trail after its annual seasonal closure to protect nesting peregrine falcons, which fledged successfully for the fifth consecutive year, as Hoodline reported in its recent falcon-nesting update. That trail, along with every other route in the park, is now off-limits under the wildfire closure order.
A Young Park With a Recurring Fire Problem
Fishers Peak State Park was established in 2020 as Colorado's 42nd state park after a public-private partnership acquired the 19,200-acre former Crazy French Ranch in 2019 for more than $25 million, according to the Colorado Encyclopedia. The purchase, funded jointly by CPW, Great Outdoors Colorado, The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and the City of Trinidad, was intended to preserve open space and boost eco-tourism in the region.
This is not the first time fire has threatened the park's surroundings this year. In April, the Schwachheim Fire burned 1,582 acres in the adjacent Lake Dorothey State Wildlife Area, prompting a verbal state disaster declaration from Governor Jared Polis, as Hoodline covered in its report on Polis freeing emergency wildfire funds. Lake Dorothey borders the eastern edge of Fishers Peak along the New Mexico line, meaning the park has now faced two significant fire threats within four months.
Part of a Bigger, Busier Fire Season
The outbreak near Trinidad is unfolding during an unusually active wildfire season across Colorado. Earlier this summer, the state saw the 101,879-acre Aspen Acres Fire in Pueblo and Custer Counties, the seventh-largest fire in Colorado history, along with the 39,507-acre Gold Mountain Fire in Ouray County, according to The Colorado Sun.
Nationally, the picture is similarly strained. Federal fire officials reported 95 active uncontained large fires as of Thursday, with more than 6.4 million acres burned across 46,636 wildfires so far this year, 154% of the ten-year national average, per the National Interagency Fire Center. Before the post-fire broke out, the Colorado State Forest Service had awarded grant funding to Fishers Peak under its Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation program to support Phase 3 fuel treatment work aimed at reducing wildfire risk across the park's rugged terrain.
For now, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has not said when trails might reopen, and it remains unclear whether firefighting crews will be able to keep the blaze from reaching the summit itself or how much damage the park's newest trail infrastructure may sustain. What is confirmed is that the fire has not yet reached the peak, and that keeping it that way is the immediate priority for crews working the steep, remote terrain along the Colorado-New Mexico border.
