Costilla County fights for resources as it battles Colorado’s wildfires

Swan Valley firefighters MacKinnon Pruett, left, and Destri Vias, right, get ready to leave the spike camp to head out on the Spring Creek Fire on July 4, 2018 in La Veta.

The seven staffers within the Costilla County administration office are pulling 12- to 16-hour days trying to manage all that goes along with one of the largest wildfires in Colorado history igniting in their small, resource-scarce county.

“We have such a small staff,” said Ben Doon, the county’s chief administrative officer. “If I need to take a break, it’s hard to find someone within the county with my knowledge of things to take my place. It’s the ninth day of this with no sign of letting up.”

As emergency operation teams and incident management teams from across the state rally to help Costilla County fight the Spring Creek fire now burning more than 103,300 acres, Doon and his crew are trying to deal with the locals who want to learn whether their homes are destroyedfrom a familiar face rather than an outsider.

“We’re getting great resources from more counties, but there are certain things that only the people who know Costilla County can do,” Doon said. “It’s like someone is needed practically 24 hours a day and no one can work 24 hours a day.”

With nearly a dozen fires raging across the state, the fight for resources, information and employees can seem like a never-ending battle. Support systems across the country try to ensure the battle is less of a tug-of-war and more of a fair allocation based on which fire is posing the most danger.

Larry Helmerick of the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center is a busy man these days helping determine which fire resources get sent where.

“Basically, if the fire is close to people and critical infrastructure, we send a lot of stuff,” Helmerick said.

The chain of command begins with the volunteer fire departments who typically arrive first at the scene of a blaze, Helmerick said. If they need help, they’d call up a local dispatch center in Pueblo, Fort Collins, Craig, Durango, Grand Junction, Wyoming or South Dakota. Whichever center is closest to the fire in question would start coordinating help in the form of crews, engines, helicopters, air tankers and more.

When crews battling the Lake Christine fire in Eagle Countycalled for backup, the coordination center sent two helicopters and seven single-engine air tankers the night it ignited, Helmerick said.

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