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Carbondale’s weekly
Volume 12, Number 14 | May 14 - 21, 2020
community connector
Planning for wildfire during COVID-19 By Kathleen Shannon Sopris Sun Correspondent As the heat of summer and fire season both barrel toward the arid West, COVID-19 adds complications to an already delicate situation. Fire restrictions were placed in 11 National Forests and on BLM-managed spaces in 11 counties across Colorado in early April that are not due to expire until the end of May. Still, Western Colorado firefighters have needed to respond to flare-ups caused by illegal fires, including the Parsnip Fire that burned four acres near Thompson Creek south of Carbondale last week. “There’s an additional level of frustration,” said Kevin Warner, Aspen-Sopris District Ranger. “Smokey [the Bear] has been around for eons, it seems. It’s hard to imagine that our forest visitors haven’t had the opportunity to learn about extinguishing your campfire before you leave.” Firefighting agencies at the local and national levels are at the drawing board preparing for the dual blows of fire season during the COVID-19 outbreak. “The nature of wildfire management is that it’s an interagency response, from county to state to federal levels,” said Vaughn Jones, Wildland Section Chief at the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. The issue has roused some attention in the US Congress. Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District held a press call last week with colleagues from Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada whom are working to advocate national support for Western firefighters. “Early on in this crisis, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) published prioritization testing guidelines,” said Neguse “and it very regrettably left out first responders from tier one prioritization.” The western state colleagues penned a letter to the CDC and to Vice President Pence imploring that first responders be elevated to tier one testing prioritization. The true fire perspective on the call came from Don Lombardi, Fire Chief of West Metro Fire Rescue in Lakewood. When Lombardi and other Colorado fire chiefs requested in mid-April that Governor Polis enact a six-month statewide fire ban “to help us out a little,” the ask was denied. “That tells us: ‘hey, we’re going to count on you but we’re not going to help support you’” Lombardi said. He pointed to a lack of aid in federal funding in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. “Respectfully,” he said, “where it looks like those dollars are coming down, I’m not sure they’re getting dispersed correctly.” Though the CARES Act supplied Colorado with $558 million in direct federal aid last week, that aid was sent exclusively to counties with a population of 500,000 or more. That means it was funneled into only five of Colorado’s 64 counties; all of which sit on the Front Range. “Unfortunately,” Lombardi said, “those counties are trying to figure out what to do with that [money] and fire departments in smaller municipalities and fire districts are being forgotten.”“When you look from a fire perspective,” Lombardi said, “we’re the ones going into the houses of people with COVID symptoms, we’re the ones treating them, we’re the ones taking them to hospitals.” He said that the pandemic is cutting into already “razor-thin” fire budgets and that could ultimately lead to emergencies in which 911-callers experience longer wait times for fewer firefighters to arrive. At the department level, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is interacting with other US agencies — the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — in its response to the pandemic, said Jayson Barangan, the acting Director of Communications at the BLM state office. The infrastructure of wildland firefighting is inherently complex. In the case of large fires, crews may travel from other counties and states to help fight the flames and they usually establish a base camp, or “fire camp” involving dozens of people sleeping in tents, sharing food, and existing in close quarters often isolated deep in the wilderness. Continued on page 6
An improperly doused campfire — which shouldn't even have been lit in the first place due to on going fire restrictions — sparked a blaze in a remote part of Thompson Creek. The Forest Service responded with 15 firefighters and a helicopter. An investigation into the Parsnip Fire began even as crews were finishing firelines, mopping up hot spots and removing snags. Photo by Will Grandbois
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