Public land north and east of Ouray and Ridgway reopened on August 25, and a second closure nearby got smaller the same day. If you are heading into southwest Colorado this week, the useful part is not the news. It is that the BLM wrote the remaining closed area in section, township and range, and you cannot navigate from that.
From the BLM’s announcement, dated August 25, 2026 and read August 26: the Uncompahgre Field Office “terminated the remaining emergency closure associated with the Gold Mountain Fire,” originally issued June 29 and amended since. Those lands “are now open to public entry and use.”
The Gunnison Field Office reduced rather than ended its closure. What stays shut, in the agency’s own words, is BLM land “north of the Bear Creek Trail and Ridge Stock Driveway to the boundary of U.S. Forest Service-administered public lands in Ouray and Hinsdale counties, including Sections 1 and 12 of T43 N., R7 W., and Sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 of T43 N., R6 W.,” plus BLM land “west of Colorado State Highway 149 to the boundary of U.S. Forest Service-administered public lands in Hinsdale County, including Sections 23, 26 and 35 of T45 N., R4 W.”
A legal description is not a map
That is the Public Land Survey System, and it is precise. It is also useless at a road junction at dusk. A section is one square mile. Knowing that Sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 of one township are closed tells you nothing you can act on unless you can put those squares on the ground.
The BLM knows this, which is why the announcement carries three attachments: the signed closure order, the rescission order, and a map. The map is the 8.2 MB PDF, and it is the document that matters. Download it before you lose signal, not after.
Two landmarks in that text are usable without it. Bear Creek Trail and Colorado State Highway 149 are findable. The Forest Service boundary is not something most people can see from a truck.
Reopened is not unrestricted
A closure order and a fire restriction are different documents, and lifting one does nothing to the other. BLM Colorado’s fire page, read August 26, 2026, says restrictions dropped to Stage 1 in the Uncompahgre and Gunnison field offices effective August 21. Stage 1 is a reduction from Stage 2, not an all-clear, and it still governs fire.
We have not read the signed orders themselves, only the announcement that describes them, so treat the boundary above as the agency’s summary of its own order rather than the order’s exact text.
What to do this week
Pull the map PDF off the announcement page. If your route touches the edge of that area, call before you drive: Uncompahgre at (970) 240-5300, Gunnison at (970) 642-4940. Ask which roads are open, not just which lands are.
Then go by the sign and the gate. A posted closure at the road beats anything published, including this page.
For what Colorado’s public land allows the rest of the year, see our Colorado free camping page.