For years, agreements made between La Plata County and local fire districts related to fire-management responsibilities and jurisdictional handoffs were sealed with a handshake.
But with local budgets shrinking and wildland fire threats growing larger, local fire departments, the county and the sheriff have decided to put their standard operating agreements into ink.
“The expenses are just getting to be exorbitant no one agency can handle this alone, so there needs to be a specific procedure in place for this to move up the chain,” said Bruce Evans, chief of Upper Pine River Fire Protection District. “There have to be formal agreements to help spread out the risk and financial burden.”
The Board of County Commissioners approved the agencies’ final agreement, called the Local Government Cooperative Wildland Fire Management in La Plata County Agreement, on Tuesday.
Commissioners also approved a broader annual operating plan that outlines mutual aid and cost-sharing agreements between local, state and federal fire-prevention and land-management agencies for wildland firefighting.
The operating plan was entirely rewritten this year to better define the responsibilities of each agency, clarify mutual-aid agreements and assign time and paperwork requirements for cost-share agreements, transfers of authority and delegations of command.
Such changes were needed after last fire season when concerns arose with how fires were managed fiscally and how related paperwork was processed after the fact, said Adam Smith, assistant county attorney. The agreements clear up some of the confusion, Smith said.
Several factors spurred the changes in the operating agreement and the creation of the local wildland fire agreement including increasingly tight fiscal constraints faced by all agencies, the creation last year of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control and recent drought conditions that are creating a landscape more prone to wildfires.
The agreements have taken months to negotiate. One source of contention, for example, was the effort to define the amount of money and other resources each entity is able to expend before requiring higher level help. The county has capped its financial exposure at $500,000, but with budgets strained at every level, the amount each agency should be able to afford was debated.
The county’s financial cap for its firefighting expenditures exposes the financial realities behind those duties, commissioner Julie Westendorff said.
“The terms in this (document) highlight the fact that fighting fires isn’t something that governments can do without limit,” she said.
ecowan@durangoherald.com
