Sanborn Update: 403 Fire

by Ariella Rogge on March 31

As many of you in Colorado know, and as some outside of Colorado are beginning to hear via social media and news outlets, there is a grass fire near the Florissant Fossil Beds, Lake George and Florissant.

The 403 Fire began on the east side of County Road 403 (almost 4 miles to the west of the main camp area) Thursday morning, and then pushed into some parts of Fishcreek on the far west side of the ranch. During the afternoon, the winds came up and the fire moved quickly through the grasses on the adjacent NFS lands. Prior to being issued a mandatory evacuation order, we had begun to move our HTOEC students, Nature Place guests, and staff off the property. All staff are comfortably housed in other locations until the evacuation order is lifted.

The fire is currently to the west/northwest of the Colorado Outdoor Education Center facilities. A large majority of the camp property is to the south/southeast of the fire and is not in any imminent danger with the current prevailing winds. We have moved our horses and other livestock to the Witcher Ranch and they are being cared for by our wrangler team.

Fire crews and some of our maintenance department spent last night cutting a fire line to the west of camp, and fire crews are currently on property actively increasing defensible spaces around our main camp buildings.

Based on the reports and updates we have received from the myriad agencies responding to this fire, our understanding is that the majority of the fire has remained in the grass and on the ground, limiting damage to land and trees. We have also recently completed a large-scale mitigation project on the western edge of Big Spring, which should also help to keep the fire on the ground.

We are incredibly grateful to the fire fighters and crews who responded quickly and spent the night keeping the fire from entering the immediate camp area. We are lucky to have neighbors and a community who care deeply about Sanborn Camps and have offered to help in many ways. We also appreciate those of you who have reached out to see how we are doing.

We will post additional updates on our Facebook page and in the camp blog over the course of the next few days as we continue to receive information.

Thank you for your support and we are all looking forward to the snow that is forecast for early next week.

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Ariella Rogge
About Ariella Rogge

Ariella started her career at Sanborn when she was twelve. After five years of camper and five years of Sanborn staff experience, she continued her work with kids in the high school classroom. Ariella and her family returned to Sanborn in 2001 to take on the Program Director role which she held til 2012. She and Elizabeth Marable became co-directors of High Trails in 2013 and then Ariella became the High Trails Director in 2020. In the fall of 2022 she became the Director of Sanborn Western Camps, overseeing the director teams of both Big Spring and High Trails. She lists mountain golf, Gymkhana, climbing mountains and making Pad Thai in the backcountry as some of her favorite activities at camp. Ariella received a B.A. in English from Colorado College and is a certified secondary English educator,an ACCT Level 2 Ropes Course Technician, an ARC lifeguard and NREMT and WEMT. She lives in Florissant in the summer and in Green Mountain Falls during the school year so she can stay involved with the busy lives of her husband, Matt, and two teenage sons, Lairden and Karsten.