Campers Can Face Jail Time for Unattended Fire in Colorado Park

Just a reminder, make sure your fires are OUT. Drown them. Then drown them again. Colorado Parks and Wildlife tweeted that a group of campers left a campfire still burning in one of our state parks. 

The penalty for failing to extinguish a campfire properly can range from something as small as a $50 fine, though could be up to $750, CBS Denver reported. Or, more severely, you could be sentenced to six months of jailtime.

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Fortunately, CPW said that there was enough snow on the ground that the fire didn't spread beyond igniting some nearby grass and a tree stump. There's no official word if the campers were also cited for littering.

Campfires in Colorado are something to be taken seriously, because in a dry climate like ours, unattended flames spread like, well, wildfires.

Fortunately, the March weather was on our side in this instance. Had this been in the summer, it likely would've been a lot worse. In 2020, while not started by campfires, the state of Colorado had its two largest wildfires in history burning simultaneously, and right next to each other: Cameron Peak Fire and East Troublesome Fire. In total, the fires burned for over 100 days, consumed hundreds of thousands of acres, and damaged hundreds of structures, including homes... and almost basically the entire town of Estes Park.