Highway 125 Clean-Up a Key Piece of Ongoing Wildfire Recovery Work

Sept. 8, 2022

Highway 125 Clean-Up a Key Piece of Ongoing Wildfire Recovery Work

With Mother Nature’s help (or lack thereof), residents and commuters along Colo. Highway 125 have maintained their place on the long list of Grand County locals and Northern Coloradans who are still navigating the aftermath of the East Troublesome Fire. Since July, monsoonal rains have pushed fire debris and sediment within the burn scar down into Willow Creek and other nearby watersheds, which has spilled out on the road in several areas, causing numerous closures this summer along the highway that serves as the main traffic artery between Granby and Walden.

In response, Northern Water and its fire recovery partners have undertaken massive clean-up efforts along the impacted stretches of roadway. These ongoing clean-up efforts – being done in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), Grand County, Natural Resources Conservation Service and Flatiron Construction – represent yet another aspect of the $35 million in recovery work that Northern Water has helped spearhead in response to the 2020 East Troublesome Fire, the second-largest wildfire in state history.

Northern Water's Landon Shaw provides a close-up look at some of the Highway 125 clean-up work in this 2-minute video.

This summer’s Highway 125 clean-up got underway toward the end of July to address debris pileups from large monsoonal rains that occurred earlier that month. But as additional storms have arrived in more recent weeks, continued road work has been needed to keep the highway open, and these efforts could stretch deeper into 2022 depending on what Mother Nature brings to the area. Similar efforts took place in 2021 to address debris pileups and road closures, but the uptick in monsoonal rain events this summer has led to a larger workload for CDOT, Northern Water and their partners.

This aerial shot shows one of the many drainages where debris has been piling up before being washed out onto Highway 125.

This photo shows how debris and sediment have been settling and compacting under the Highway 125 bridge over Willow Creek, similar to how it’s been collecting at other locations along the road.