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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.<\/p>\n
The seven staffers within the Costilla County administration office are pulling 12- to 16-hour days trying to manage all that goes along with\u00a0one of the largest wildfires in Colorado history<\/a>\u00a0igniting in their small, resource-scarce county.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have such a small staff,\u201d said Ben Doon, the county\u2019s chief administrative officer. \u201cIf I need to take a break, it\u2019s hard to find someone within the county with my knowledge of things to take my place. It\u2019s the ninth day of this with no sign of letting up.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u00a0learn whether their homes are destroyed<\/a>from a familiar face rather than an outsider.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting great resources from more counties, but there are certain things that only the people who know Costilla County can do,\u201d Doon said. \u201cIt\u2019s like someone is needed practically 24 hours a day and no one can work 24 hours a day.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Larry Helmerick\u00a0of the\u00a0Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center is a busy man these days helping determine which fire resources get sent where.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, if the fire is close to people and critical infrastructure, we send a lot of stuff,\u201d Helmerick said.<\/p>\n 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\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n