Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park lost sev­er­al struc­tures when the East Trou­ble­some fire blew up overnight on Oct. 22, cross­ing into the park’s bound­ary and burn­ing near­ly 30,000 acres.

In a state­ment released Fri­day, the park said the fire destroyed the his­toric Onahu Lodge and Green Moun­tain cab­ins, which are land­marks locat­ed along Trail Ridge Road in the Kawuneeche Val­ley and were eli­gi­ble for the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places due to their rus­tic design and con­nec­tion to 20th-cen­tu­ry ranch­ing and resort indus­tries. The park also used them to house sea­son­al staff.

Rocky also lost the Trails and Tack Barn, the Grand Lake entrance sta­tion office (although not the entrance kiosks), and the garage struc­ture at Trail Riv­er Ranch, which stored his­toric con­tents that were also lost.

On the east side of Rocky, the fire destroyed the park’s old­est struc­ture, the Fern Lake Back­coun­try Patrol Cab­in, which was con­struct­ed in 1925.

RELATED: Pho­tos show dam­age to Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park from East Trou­ble­some Fire

“In 95 years, count­less rangers, wilder­ness crews, trails crews, biol­o­gists, and search and res­cue oper­a­tions have been based and sup­port­ed out of this cab­in,” said Dar­la Sidles, park super­in­ten­dent, in a press statement.

The main park hous­ing area, the Kawuneeche Vis­i­tor Cen­ter, the Trail Riv­er Ranch main build­ing and Bucka­roo Barn were spared, the park said.

The East Trou­ble­some fire has grown to 193,812 Acres and was 47% con­tained as of Fri­day after­noon. The fire is still active in remote areas of the park so staff can­not get in to do a full assess­ment of the damage.

The park says it will pre­pare a Burned Area Emer­gency Response Plan to assess the burned areas, look­ing for poten­tial dis­tur­bances and rec­om­mend­ing ways to mit­i­gate impacts when pos­si­ble. The park said it will use research and mon­i­tor­ing to track and under­stand post-fire effects and recovery.

Wildfire mitigation in Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky, the third-most-vis­it­ed nation­al park in 2019, has been aware of the wild­fire dan­ger it pos­es to Estes Park for at least 20 years, the park said.

“Over that time, there was a real­iza­tion that wild­fires are get­ting larg­er nation­wide, fire sea­sons are get­ting longer and to make mat­ters worse, the moun­tain pine bee­tle out­break cre­at­ed a fuels pro­file that is very volatile,” said Fire Man­age­ment Offi­cer Mike Lewelling in a press statement.

Over the past five years, the park has tried to cre­ate a ”catcher’s mitt” around Estes Park and oth­er areas near Allenspark and Lily Lake, which includ­ed thin­ning trees and set­ting pre­scribed fires.

“It was wide­ly accept­ed that these fuels treat­ments on their own would prob­a­bly not stop a fire, but they give fire­fight­ers a chance,” Lewelling said.

What is left of the Grand Lake entrance sta­tion office. (Pro­vid­ed by Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park)