County Sheriff criticizes Fire Chief over Black Forest Fire in Colorado Springs

(Originally published at 7:54 p.m. November 26, 2013; updated at 1:21 p.m. November 29.)

Origin of the Black Forest Fire
Origin of the Black Forest Fire

The public battle between the local county Sheriff Terry Maketa and Bob Harvey, the Fire Chief responsible for the first two hours of the initial attack of the Black Forest Fire in Colorado Springs continues to heat up. On November 21 we wrote about the disagreement between the two over the cause of the fire. Now the Sheriff is criticizing the Fire Chief for not agreeing within the first two hours of the fire to turn it over to him.

The fire killed two people, destroyed 486 homes, and damaged 37 others in June.

Colorado is one of a few states that have the ridiculous policy of assigning the suppression of wildfires in unincorporated areas to the county employee with law enforcement responsibilities in those areas — the County Sheriff — rather than a person with expertise in fire suppression.

The video above is part one of a three part series by KRDO.

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(UPDATED at 10:26 a.m. MT, November 27, 2013)

KRDO has published parts two and three of the three-part series. The videos are below.

 

And as you will see in the video below, a petition is circulating at several businesses in the area calling for the immediate dismissal of Fire Chief Bob Harvey. This is occurring after blistering attacks by Sheriff Terry Maketa and many stories on KRDO News Channel 13 which presented Sheriff Maketa’s version of the facts. We hope that an impartial, professional investigation discloses what actually happened during the first two hours of the fire, which is the time frame that Sheriff Maketa is criticizing. We also hope that KRDO covers that as well.


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Black Forest fire, June 15, 2013
Black Forest fire, June 15, 2013. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

 

Thanks go out to Micah

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

11 thoughts on “County Sheriff criticizes Fire Chief over Black Forest Fire in Colorado Springs”

  1. In the case of the Black Forest Fire, the Chief has a “duty to report” to the Sheriff and give a no BS assessment of the fire, and is obligated by law to hand the fire over to the Sheriff when it exceeds his district’s ability to control or extinguish. This enables the Sheriff to bring more aid to the Chief (not remove him from command as suggested), more money to utilize, more personnel and resources and on and on. Several fires including this and the Lower North Fork are cases where the Fire services were well past overwhelmed before asking for aid or even notifying others in the case of Lower North Fork.

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    1. Steve,

      There were lots of problems uncovered in the Lower North Fork fire
      but delayed turnover to the sheriff was not one of the problems. 20 minutes from the state forest service slopover report, two fire departments are dispatched by the sheriff [JCSO] to assist. 58 minutes from the report, a type 3 team is requested. At 68 minutes, federal assistance is requested by the county.

      http://jeffco.us/sheriff/records/lower-north-fork-fire/

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      1. CSFD reported internally the slopover and waited 40 min to request aid from local fire district of a single Type 3 Engine. The JCSO got reports of smoke and asked NFFD for assistance to investigate. CSFD reported it as a non-issue until requesting the IMT3 and requesting evacuations which were already in progress by NFFD and JCSO.

        Fire services (CSFD) was claiming a minor issue even as fire was well out of control and entering the homes. I call that a failure.

        1315 embers carried outside containment started spot fires
        1340 CSFD reports internally spot fire out of control
        1355 Sheriff investigated smoke report and asked for assistance in investigation from NFFD.
        1430 CSFD request T-3 eng from NFFD for slop over
        1630 (about) evac initiated by SO patrol and NFFD
        1640 CSFD requests aid, evac and IMT3
        1702 Reverse 911 launched
        1820 Sheriffs evac from area

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        1. The Lower North Fork Fire Commission prescribed fire report states things differently but I can’t prove either side right or wrong. The LNFFC says that CSFS requested multiple units from local districts through the Jeffco Sheriff Fire Management staff. I can’t find any other reference to these persons or to that request.
          There are common misinterpretations from CSFS and USFS fire crews that understand fire districts to be a part of the County. I can’t say if that was an issue here.

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      2. Steve,

        The timelines and comm logs from CSFS and PID attached in the sheriff’s report might help to clear up some of your questions. Yes there are some differences between the LNFFC report and the sheriff’s report.

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  2. The Sheriff is not a County Employee in Colorado as stated in this article. The Sheriff is an elected official. The law dates back to the origin of the State where the Sheriff is the only person obligated by statute for Public Safety in the County. This includes law enforcement and several other things. The Sheriff is specifically in responsible for Search and Rescue and is designated as Fire Warden. Colorado uses a combination of fire departments that operate under a County or municipality and Fire Districts which are a specific form of Special District which is a lower level of local government on par with municipalities.
    Fire Districts form by asking the people of the area they want to serve if they can form , set a tax by mill levy and create a service plan. Nowhere in the law is there a minimum level of service. Fire districts in Colorado often hand a fire to the Sheriff after the mutual aid period is up so that the Sheriff pays the costs of fighting the fire. Often the Sheriff delegates authority back to the chief.
    On the other hand the Sheriff is obligated by statute to “take responsibility for a wildfire” when the fire “exceeds the capability of a Fire District to control or extinguish”. How that happens is up to the Sheriff and districts (often multiple in a single county) to work out through MOUs and for those two to comply with the agreement. Ultimately the Sheriff, not a district, is wholly responsible for the cost of suppression, safety of the people, loss of public property, agreements with State and Feds, disaster declarations, and requests for aid from outside the community. In other words, the Sheriff doesn’t take the deputies out on a fire line, the Sheriff has the ability to “call to aid” anything or anyone necessary to retain the safety of the population. That often includes signing a delegation of authority to the Chief for the fire while retaining oversight of the bigger picture and assuming the cost of the incident.
    The archaic part of the law is that the District and the Chief have NO accountability except to the people of their district. Unless the District is given accountability for actions and responsibility cost, the Sheriff MUST remain as the chief of public safety in the community.
    The biggest misnomer of the fire world is that a wildfire incident is the fire. If you believe that, you have already failed. The wildfire is the activity that creates a hazard for the people, property, resources, and economy of the area around the fire. While firefighters attack the fire and go home when the flames are out, local government deals with shelters, utilities, economic losses, costs, liability, mud slides, recovery, reconstruction and everything else for years to come.

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  3. Montana is another State where the Sheriff is in charge of Fire in the County. Fortunately, state law says the Fire Chief is n charge of haz mat incidents.

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  4. In Broward County FL the entire fire/rescue department falls under command of the Sheriffs Department. It seems to work, but unusual.

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  5. That’s unbelievable…I had no idea. Reflecting back to all of the massive fires Colorado has had over the years makes me wonder why this law is still in place. Kind of like the outdated mining law which will allow a new open pit mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest of southern Arizona.

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    1. It’s my understanding that this law goes way back to the days when the county sheriff was probably the only government presence in the rural areas, before there were rural fire districts – or much of anything else – in those unincorporated areas where wildfires occurred. Of course in the decades since, many of those areas have been built up into WUI, countless fire protection districts have been established, etc., so it needs to be re-examined.

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