The Cortez Fire Protection District recently presented at the Cortez City Council work session, an hour before their regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 28.
“We were asked to come here to provide insight in light of what happened in LA,” said Cortez Fire Chief Roy Wilkinson.
The Cortez Fire Protection District, in conjunction with crews in Ignacio and Bayfield, sent a total of 10 wildland firefighters to Los Angeles on Jan. 11.
They returned Jan. 25, said Wilkinson.
“It was devastation,” Wilkinson said. “Just nothing they’d ever seen before.”
On Feb. 1, the Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California officially reached 100% containment three weeks after they began.
In that time, the fires killed at least 29 people, displaced thousands, destroyed more than 16,200 structures and scorched more than 37,000 acres, according to The New York Times.
The fires are considered two of the deadliest in California’s history.
Wilkinson said a lot of the severity had to do with the way the area was manicured, and the winds and water.
His presentation to City Council covered concerns and items the fire district has in relation to our area.
The key is getting to the fire as fast as possible, since the faster they can get water on the fire, the faster they can suppress it, said Wilkinson.
At present, the Cortez area is at a moderate fire rating, “mainly because we haven’t had any rain.”
The areas of concern are:
- The Carpenter Preserve Area.
- The Brookside area, which has dense housing north of Empire Street.
- Hawkins Preserve.
- South of Southern Bluffs.
- Denny Park because of its cat tails.
- And any mobile home park, because of its dense housing.
“The big part of this is the weather,” Wilkinson said. “California had excess of 40 mph winds and that was one of the things that pushed it. We get winds, and we have prevailing winds out of the southwest.”
“And where are all of these large fields of vegetation? Most of them are in the southwest of our city.”
Wilkinson then zoomed out, and looked at areas of concern within the county:
- Lowry Ruin.
- Dolores Rim.
- McPhee Mobile Home Park.
- Granath Mesa.
- Mountain View/Black Rino.
- Summit Lake.
- Cedar Mesa.
- Jackson Lake.
- East Canyon.
- Montezuma County Landfill.
The city of Cortez is surrounded by something called “high-risk” wildland urban interface.
The state’s Forest Service defined that as “any area where man-made improvements are built close to or within natural terrain and flammable vegetation, and where high potential for wildland fire exists.”
Think of things like brush, juniper and piñon pines near homes. Think of homes built close to one another, encased in flammable roofs and siding, separated by flammable vegetation and vehicles.
“That’s where we live,” Wilkinson said. “We’re surrounded by it.”
He paused and said, “I only have 15 minutes to talk tonight, but I could go on for hours just because of what we have in our area.”
As far as defense goes, the Cortez Fire Protection District has 22 wildland firefighters, four brush trucks, two water tender trucks, two structure fire engines and five to six firefighters on every shift.
Plus, there’s mutual aid agreements that bring another 16 brush trucks, 12 tenders and 12 engines to the table, and “all could be called for if needed,” said Wilkinson.
Plus, there’s the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control and the U.S. Forest Service in Dolores.
There’s also a local Wildfire Adapted Partnership.
They work with neighbors and agency partners to “create wildfire-adapted communities.”
Such communities have defensible space around homes, plans for evacuations and are prepare for wildfires on a neighborhood level.
The Montezuma County representative from that partnership who helps out with those things is Celeste Moore, and her email is cmoore@wildfireadapted.org.
Cortez Fire Battalion Chief Rick Spencer eventually joined Wilkinson at the podium and said, “You used to hear ‘the Wildland season.’ There’s not a season anymore, it’s 100% year-round.”
Wilkinson agreed, and said how there’s been several brush fires in December and January “that we shouldn’t have, normally.”
“So we continue to ask people to be responsible when they are burning, and to make sure that if it’s a little bit of a windy day, to use some common sense and not burn,” he said.
Cortez Public Works Director Brian Peckins presented on the city’s fire suppression water availability next.
The city has about 500 fire hydrants, and there’s a five-year plan in place to cycle through and make sure they all work properly. The city checks about 100 per year, and they flow at almost 1,000 gallons per minute.
Peckins said our situation in Cortez is different from it was in Los Angeles, and Cortez Mayor Rachel Medina agreed.
“We’re sitting better here in Cortez than LA and even the county, but we still aren’t immune.”
And that’s why Cortez Fire presented: “To make sure everyone is aware of the hazards that are potentially there,” said Wilkinson.
