question:  What initially alerted people to the fault line and the onset of problems?
context: It has happened a hundred times in the long history of Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! There was never so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the general public. By the mid sixties it was definitely established that the three Faults were in fact a single line of fissure in the essential rock, stretching almost from the Canadian border well south of the New Mexico-Texas line. Springs was going dry, too, apparently from underground disturbances. Newspapers in the mountain states gave it a few inches on the front page; anything is news in late August. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. To excuse the other geologists, it must be said that the Kiowa Fault had never acted up before. As the tremors grew bigger, along with the affected area, as several towns including Edison were shaken to pieces by incredible earthquakes, whole bus- and plane-loads of geologists set out for Colorado, without even waiting for their university and government department to approve budgets. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. By 16 September the landslip had crept down the Huerfano River past Cedarwood. Land west of the Fault was holding firm, though Denver had recorded several small tremors; everywhere east of the Fault, to almost twenty miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent several thousand Coloradans scurrying for safety. As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome life.
output:  They investigated what they thought was a forest fire, only to find it was sediment and dust.
options:  Geologists were already aware of its presence and had been watching it.  They investigated what they thought was a forest fire, only to find it was sediment and dust.  The land had become so dry it was a cause of concern.  Newspapers had established the connections of the 3 faults.