Residents and property owners in the Animas and Hermosa fire protection districts voted to dissolve the entities Tuesday as a final housekeeping move in the creation of the Durango Fire Protection District.

“The vote in both cases was extremely decisive,” said fire protection district Deputy Chief of Operations Hal Doughty. “We only have preliminary numbers, and aren’t comfortable releasing them until they’re certified on Thursday.”

Doughty said his impression was that the voter turnout was extremely low.

Voters in the Durango, Animas and Hermosa service areas approved a measure giving the new entity one board and a guaranteed funding stream from all three former taxing districts in November, the third time the effort had appeared on a ballot.

“In the fall, when voters agreed to fund DFPD, it included as a contingency that Animas and Hermosa wouldn’t certify a mill levy,” Doughty said. “We wanted to get this election in before the regular election cycle in the spring, because otherwise, they would need to elect new members for unfunded boards that are going away.”

abutler@durangoherald.com

Hal Doughty’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.