After spending more than $80,000 fighting wildfires in 2017, Routt County commissioners are studying how the county can more effectively spend that money to improve the county’s five rural fire protection districts.
The county had budgeted $31,000 to fight wildfires, but spent $83,028. Emergency Management Director David “Mo” DeMorat believes the county and the rural fire protection districts in Steamboat Springs, North Routt, Yampa, West Routt and Oak Creek can realize greater long-term benefits by instead spending that money on upgrading the effectiveness of their volunteer firefighters and the tools available to them.
Routt County doesn’t operate a firefighting department itself. And the five rural fire protection districts are essentially governments themselves collecting taxes from property owners within their districts.
The districts have a long tradition of mutual aid — turning out to fight fires in each other’s districts. And Routt County has historically budgeted between $10,000 and $31,000 (in 2017) to compensate the fire districts for suppressing blazes, including those fires burning within their own districts.
However, recent changes to Colorado law no longer require counties to do that, and DeMorat believes the county’s dollars would be better spent by improving the fire district’s capabilities.
Tentatively, DeMorat said, the county proposes to continue to encourage the mutual aid ethic and compensate the districts for their expenses in the first “response period” (up to the first 24 hours on the fire line) when they respond to wildfires outside their own district, with the cost to the county perhaps capped at $30,000.
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