Low Snowpack and Hot Weather
08/21/2025 12:47PM ● By Eugene Buchanan
Photo: In 2019, the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps fire crew worked on the Big Red Fire. Crews are at the ready to fight fires this summer that could occur due to the year’s subpar snowpack and hotter-than-usual temperatures. Courtesy of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps.
With this year’s subpar snowpack, high winds and hotter temperatures prompting a Red Flag warning for Routt and Moffat counties as early as mid-June, it could shape up to be a big wildfire season in Northwest Colorado. Thankfully, locally based Rocky Mountain Youth Corps has crews at the ready with chainsaws and Pulaskis in hand for deployment whenever and wherever they might be needed – including a first-in-the-country intern program consisting of National Guard members.
“We’ve partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for years to provide young adults with wildland fire training and certification through these agencies,” says RMYC’s Mark Wertheimer. “Our crews have been deployed on wildfire assignments in Colorado and across the West, providing support whenever it’s needed. Our program also positions the crew members to pursue careers in wildland firefighting after their service with RMYC.”
One homerun for RMYC this year is a pilot program for which four National Guard members serve as interns working with the Forest Service on wildfire suppression efforts out of Yampa. “It’s the first program like it in the country,” says RMYC’s Ryan Banks. “No one else in the entire nation is doing it. And it’s especially great and exciting this year, a silver lining with all the cuts our partners are facing."
In conjunction with the Colorado Youth Corps Association, the pilot program came about when leaders of Serve Colorado signed a first-in-the-country MOU (more formally known as a Memorandum of Understanding) to create a pathway for current National Guard members to pursue wildfire careers as part of a new Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program.
Working on fuels projects and suppression efforts on Rabbit Ears when not deployed to help fight wildfires, the National Guard members are paid via AmeriCorps and get wildfire-fighting certifications as part of the program. Ryan adds that RMYC is hoping to find long-term funding for the program after this year’s pilot launch.
This summer RMYC has fire interns on three different crews in both Yampa and Craig, including one member who served on a hotshot crew helping suppress a spring fire in Michigan. The interns in Craig work on BLM land and are most often assigned to local fires, while the Yampa crews, including the new National Guard team, conducts mitigation work around Clark and on Rabbit Ears Pass when not deployed elsewhere.
Crews this year have already helped on several fires, including a 500-acre brush fire near ColoWyo Mine in Moffat County.
RMYC fields its wildland firefighters through its Natural Resource Internship program, which trains, places and certifies interns with the USFS and BLM at various locations around the region. “This partnership is a win-win for our public lands, the communities adjacent to them, and young people who are starting a career in managing natural resources,” Mark says.
With this year’s subpar snowpack, high winds and hotter temperatures prompting a Red Flag warning for Routt and Moffat counties as early as mid-June, it could shape up to be a big wildfire season in Northwest Colorado. Thankfully, locally based Rocky Mountain Youth Corps has crews at the ready with chainsaws and Pulaskis in hand for deployment whenever and wherever they might be needed – including a first-in-the-country intern program consisting of National Guard members.
“We’ve partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for years to provide young adults with wildland fire training and certification through these agencies,” says RMYC’s Mark Wertheimer. “Our crews have been deployed on wildfire assignments in Colorado and across the West, providing support whenever it’s needed. Our program also positions the crew members to pursue careers in wildland firefighting after their service with RMYC.”
One homerun for RMYC this year is a pilot program for which four National Guard members serve as interns working with the Forest Service on wildfire suppression efforts out of Yampa. “It’s the first program like it in the country,” says RMYC’s Ryan Banks. “No one else in the entire nation is doing it. And it’s especially great and exciting this year, a silver lining with all the cuts our partners are facing."
In conjunction with the Colorado Youth Corps Association, the pilot program came about when leaders of Serve Colorado signed a first-in-the-country MOU (more formally known as a Memorandum of Understanding) to create a pathway for current National Guard members to pursue wildfire careers as part of a new Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program.
Working on fuels projects and suppression efforts on Rabbit Ears when not deployed to help fight wildfires, the National Guard members are paid via AmeriCorps and get wildfire-fighting certifications as part of the program. Ryan adds that RMYC is hoping to find long-term funding for the program after this year’s pilot launch.
This summer RMYC has fire interns on three different crews in both Yampa and Craig, including one member who served on a hotshot crew helping suppress a spring fire in Michigan. The interns in Craig work on BLM land and are most often assigned to local fires, while the Yampa crews, including the new National Guard team, conducts mitigation work around Clark and on Rabbit Ears Pass when not deployed elsewhere.
Crews this year have already helped on several fires, including a 500-acre brush fire near ColoWyo Mine in Moffat County.
RMYC fields its wildland firefighters through its Natural Resource Internship program, which trains, places and certifies interns with the USFS and BLM at various locations around the region. “This partnership is a win-win for our public lands, the communities adjacent to them, and young people who are starting a career in managing natural resources,” Mark says.