Fraser Fire and Ice

At 4 p.m. on the day of Fire and Ice, the free Home James shuttles begin their loops through Fraser. They pick up at Grand Park Community Center, Fraser Sports Complex, Valley Life Church, and Fraser Elementary School, and they set riders down at the Lions Ponds near the EV charging station. Light-up giveaways and festival swag are handed out on the shuttles and at the Info Tent from that hour, one item to a person. The town asks people to walk or ride in and to stay out of the Safeway parking lot. The festival costs nothing. It takes place on the open ground of Cozens Ranch Open Space, north of the Fraser River Valley Lions Club Fishing Ponds. The 2027 festival is set for February 6.

KFFR also starts music and a live broadcast at four. Vendors open at five. The town named GB Fish & Chips, Birdie Lounge, The Crêpe Outdoors, Astro Coffee Bar, Holwing Moon Sauna, and Lava Box for 2027. Sky-Hi News described the food and drink at the 2026 festival as a mix of tents and food trucks. The town’s page advises warm coats, insulated boots, hats, gloves, and scarves.

Christmas trees, ice, and fireworks

The burning moves fast once it starts. At 5:30 p.m. the town announces the winner of the Business Burn-Off, a community competition held in the weeks before the festival. The bonfire is lit at 5:45, and the crowd gathers around it for the rest of the evening. Residents donate their old Christmas trees as its fuel. In 2025 a firefighter from the East Grand Fire Protection District stood watch over the blaze. At one past festival, blocks of ice were stacked into an “ice chimney” that glowed with the fire inside it.

At 6:15 the ice sculpture is ignited. A photograph from 2025 shows a fireball bursting over the crowd, part of what Sky-Hi News called the tradition of lighting up ice sculptures in a controlled setting. Fireworks follow at 6:30, and the last shuttles leave at 8.

“Start fires and blow things up”

Three people made the first one. Steve Fitzgerald is a member of the Fraser Public Arts Committee. Callie McDermott was the town’s events coordinator, and Sarah Wieck was its marketing and communications manager. Fitzgerald described how the planning began: “Our first year, we wondered, ‘What do people like to do?’ We thought, ‘I don’t know, start fires and blow things up.’” He added: “The first year, it was literally just a bonfire, an ice sculpture and then some fireworks.”

Organizers said the idea followed the success of the town’s summer Fraser Mountain Mural Festival. “Fraser is a sleepy little town at night in the winter,” Wieck said. “So we were thinking of doing something to really light this place up.”

The sources do not agree on the first year. In November 2022, Sky-Hi News called the February 2022 festival the “inaugural” one, but the photographs in that same article are captioned “the 2021 Fraser Fire & Ice festival.” A February 2026 story put the first festival five years before.

Snow sculptures and a $50,000 question

For 2023 the town set the festival for February 11 at the Lions Club fishing ponds. The bonfire, fireworks, and hot chocolate returned, and the Colorado Snow Sculpture Championships were added, with winners announced at Fire and Ice. “We have been building a strong portfolio of destination events centered around creativity,” Wieck said at the time. Visitors who donated to Fraser Valley Arts could vote in a people’s choice contest. Fraser Valley Arts is the nonprofit formed to fund, build, and operate the Fraser Center for the Creative Arts.

In 2024 the festival was again the site of a snow-sculpting competition. For the next edition, the public arts committee and town staff dropped the contest. They felt it added nothing and wanted to return to the event’s simpler roots. Wieck instead proposed hiring Snice Carvings, a Colorado company that builds large snow and ice sculptures. Under that plan, the company would carve a snow sculpture at the Lions Ponds around mid-December and return to touch it up and expand it before February. It would also build the ice chimney for the bonfire. The contract was for $50,000.

On November 21, 2024, the Board of Trustees took up the contract. McDermott, by then chair of the public arts committee, told the board the sculpture would be a “big draw.” Trustee Lewis Gregory was not persuaded: “I’m not sure that’s a good investment. I would like to see what kind of return that we would get from that investment.” One trustee suggested building a sledding hill instead. The board did not vote on the contract and asked for cheaper options. As of December 12, Snice Carvings had not submitted a new proposal. The 2025 festival was scheduled for February 8.

A yeti for Ullr

The 2026 festival fell on February 14. “Last year we had a big lighted sculpture that blew flames, and we’ll have a couple of additions like that this year too,” McDermott said beforehand. Lara Kurtak and Eric Russell built a giant yeti effigy to burn as a prayer to Ullr. The two have lived in the valley for five decades and own Local Experience, a boot-fitting, shoe, and gear-repair shop in Fraser. They also host Remember When Wednesdays on KFFR 88.3 FM as DJ Yeti and DJ Yeti Betty.

The public arts committee reviewed the 2026 festival on March 12, 2026. Most of the 17 people who answered the town’s survey rated it excellent. Respondents especially liked that children could operate the large flame sculptures. Many asked for the dragon slide to come back, but safety and water allocation constraints rule it out. Respondents also wanted more food vendors, better-timed fireworks, and more parking. That year the town had also used the ski broker lot and the grade school for parking.

The committee made a motion to move Fire and Ice to the first Saturday of February, away from Presidents’ Weekend. Members also discussed adding a parade: the high school band, Girl Scouts, elementary students in costume, and townspeople carrying glow sticks, marching to the lighting of the bonfire.