Re: Fire season already?!

There are definitely long-term fire season patterns over the years. If you notice, during much of the 1930's, the K-36 and K-37's were equipped with spark arrestors during the summer. This was, of course, a dry period over much of the Western and Plains states. After that, the "big" engines didn't sport spark arrestors again until the C&TS era. The K-27's and K-28's sported spark arrestors pretty much all along.
Specifically regarding the Silverton Branch, a long-time D&RGW employee (who shall remain nameless) told me several years ago that the D&RGW didn't have the fire problems that they have now for several reasons. Among them: the D&RGW regularly, either by cutting or chemically defoliating, removed a lot of brush from near the right-of-way; small fires were allowed to burn themselves out (often unnoticed); and (this is controversial) that the "old heads" on the D&RGW knew how to "hook up" (the Johnson bar) the locomotives so as not to throw as many cinders. I'm a little skeptical about that last one, but based on my memories of the Silverton in the 60's, I would say the other two are definitely true. Of course, chemical defoliation or wholesale brush-cutting today would have some people up in arms. But, leave the brush next to the right-of-way and it gives a small fire a chance to get a lot bigger in a hurry. And being in what may be a long-term dry pattern doesn't help. Also, the forests along the Silverton Branch (especially the ponderosa) are a lot thicker now than they used to be. Overmature and crowded ponderosa stands tend to become diseased and fire-prone naturally. All they need is an ignition source to start a major conflagration. Of course, thinning by logging is considered verboten by some, so . . .
By the way, across the Rio de Los Pinos from the C&TS from about Big Horn to Toltec is a perfect example of a very diseased ponderosa/Douglas fir forest that is absolutely prime to burn. I was frankly amazed that it didn't burn last year. One errant lightning strike and it would've gone up.