Fire season starting early

Dry spring, human involvement lead to increase in wildland fires

Though Carbon County has received some much needed moisture in the past few days, fire departments throughout the county have been dealing with an increasing number of wildland fires due to a dryer-than-normal spring.

During the May 4 meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners (BOCCC), interim Carbon County Fire Warden John Rutherford informed the board none of the fires were what he considered accidental.

“Unfortunately we’re having fires already. Little Snake River Valley’s had a few, Platte River Valley’s had a couple. The common denominator with those fires is people, across the board. Not one of those fires has been accidental,” said Rutherford. “I would certainly caution folks that we’re not sitting real good as far as going to have a nice, green spring and enjoying the outdoors. Folks are just going to have to be really careful with fire and use common sense.”

Two weeks ago, county fire departments responded to a fire on Bear Creek Ranch south of Encampment which had begun as a controlled burn. In April, three controlled burns in the Baggs area had similar circumstances as did a burn on the 1 Bar 11 Ranch near Riverside. 

Following the events in Baggs, Carbon County Emergency Manager Lenny Layman informed the BOCCC he was working to increase interstate and intercounty cooperation with fires through a Memorandum of Understand (MOU). As was reported previously (see “Looking at strengths and weaknesses” on page 3 of the April 14 Saratoga Sun), the Moffat County Fire Department in nearby Colorado had responded to the fires in Baggs but were unable to communicate once in Wyoming.

During the April 20 meeting of the county commissioners, Layman stated he was facilitating a discussion between Carbon County, Moffat County and Sweetwater County. While Layman was not in attendance on May 4, Rutherford was able to provide an update to the commissioners. 

The interim fire chief stated he had met with Henry Hucky, fire chief for the Baggs Volunteer Fire Department; Todd Wheeler, Moffat County Sheriff and Moffat County Emergency Manager; and Sweetwater County Fire Warden Mike Bournazian to discuss the MOU with the three counties.

“We’ve never had an agreement with Moffat County and we go into Moffat County and Moffat County comes into Carbon County,” Rutherford said. “So, we really needed to have something in place to protect both entities and then just lay it out in black and white where we stand.”

He added the MOU had already had some changes made to it by Moffat County but the three parties were “working through that”. Rutherford stated it was his hope the MOU would be in place before fire season began.

The next meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners will be at 2 p.m. on May 18 at the Riverside Town Hall in Riverside.

 

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