COTREX adds wildfire alerts to Colorado Trail trip planning

COTREX now shows active fire alerts, including wildfires and prescribed burns, and lets you search trailheads to see whether something is burning nearby. The Colorado Trail Explorer app and website have more than 236 land managers feeding trail data into the system, while more than 36 agency partners can post real-time advisories and closures.

Open COTREX, search the trailhead you want, read the fire alert, then check route planning, allowed-use filters and offline map downloads before you lose cell service in the backcountry. COTREX is Colorado’s official trails app, and its maps pull trail information from land managers rather than crowdsourced reports.

San Juan National Forest put Stage 2 fire restrictions in place forest-wide at 12:01 a.m. on July 1 after recent wildfire activity and persistent severe fire weather. Ouray County followed with a Stage 2 order for all unincorporated areas on June 28, and the Gold Mountain Fire closure expanded on July 2 to shut down public access to lands, roads and trails, including Alpine/Little Cimarron Trailhead, Beaver Lake, Silver Jack, Courthouse, Dexter Creek, Fall Creek and Horsethief. On July 13, multiple wildfires were burning in Colorado and bordering states.

In Four Corners country, one trail day can run through county land, San Juan National Forest or GMUG closures. The Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management says county fire maps do not cover federal restrictions, and current information still has to come from the county sheriff or the forest service when a route crosses a boundary or lands inside an incident area.