In June 2026, the Aspen Acres fire ripped through Pueblo and Custer counties, destroying over 300 homes.

Four months later, the fire continues to burn.

As of October 2nd, it has been 82% contained and has burned over 102,000 acres of land, leaving a burn scar that has put towns like Beulah at risk of flash flooding.

We know flooding is a problem because we've had other fires in the area, and there's always floods afterwards.

But it's not the thing you're really thinking of at the time of a fire.

And now it's hard to sleep.

If you live right on some of these creeks in the watersheds, it is really frightening because there's just a trickle at first.

And then after that, we have a flash flood and you can see the wall of water coming and you hear it coming, and you never know how big it's going to ge or what it's going to take out.

When wildfires burn large swaths of land, the soil can become hydrophobic, which means it repels water instead of absorbing it.

The hydrophobic soil is ripe for flash flooding, which has already taken place in Beulah multiple times since the fire after heavy rainstorms.

All around the entire valley, we have extreme burns areas.

And if you get a lot of rain, which we have had, a lot of that water just ran off.

And the scary thing will be as if we have a big snow year, like with El Nino, the snow and those extrem burn areas will just sit there and when it melts, it's just going to run off.

Derek Sokoloski is the southeast area manager for Colorado State Forest Service, and is working with Colorado State University Extension offices to teach residents how to mitigate floods on their property.

But in the low and moderate burn severities we've been already seeing that light green hue that, that that recovery is occurring already this season, helps stabilize soi These kind of slow trickling events [are] ideal for having that recharge into the upper levels, levels of the soil.

On this day, they're visiting John Switzer's property teaching residents how to use straw waddles to slow down the flow of flash floods.

So they took a look around, provided some examples of how you would dea with each of these situations, both from the Forest Service on cutting trees, which trees might survive which trees might not survive.

But then also, how do you deal with the floodwaters?

Slow them down, help it soak in, divert it where you need it diverted.

I mean, they're just meant to be speed bumps basically mean I just no, they're not, they're not meant to by an means to to dam up the water or What about using the rocks that are washing out from higher up to do the same thing?

Is that a good alternative or are they just probably not becaus they're not going to stay there.

They're not going to soak So now I've got years worth of work to do, dealing with all that stuff.

It's going to be a lot of work, but it's good guidance at this point.