September 16, 2008--Blazes affect salmon at Vallecito (Durango Herald)
Two drought-driven wildfires - the 2002 Missionary Ridge Fire that burned 70,000 acres around Vallecito Reservoir and the 2003 Bear Creek Fire that burned 1,500 acres in the upper Vallecito Creek watershed - set the stage for environmental disaster. When rain finally fell, tons of ash and fire debris washed into the reservoir, depleting dissolved oxygen and raising the pH of the water. As a result, thousands of fish, mainly kokanee salmon, died. In the years immediately after, increased winter snow and summer monsoon rain washed some of the ash from the reservoir.
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