{"id":132764,"date":"2026-06-11T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-emergency-manager-cautions-fire-danger-for-several-days\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:30:00","slug":"montezuma-county-emergency-manager-cautions-fire-danger-for-several-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-emergency-manager-cautions-fire-danger-for-several-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County emergency manager cautions fire danger for several days"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along East Main Street in Cortez, a fire danger sign says \u201cextreme\u201d fire danger. The Durango Zone Fire Business Calculator, a regional forecasting tool run by the San Juan National Forest, uses dozens of observed weather points to localize both predictive and observed fire danger values daily. An \"extreme\u201c fire danger warns all types of fires start quickly and burn intensely. Any fire may become potentially serious and may spread very quickly and burn intensely. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)
Along East Main Street in Cortez, a fire danger sign says \u201cextreme\u201d fire danger. The Durango Zone Fire Business Calculator, a regional forecasting tool run by the San Juan National Forest, uses dozens of observed weather points to localize both predictive and observed fire danger values daily. An \"extreme\u201c fire danger warns all types of fires start quickly and burn intensely. Any fire may become potentially serious and may spread very quickly and burn intensely. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Commissioners decided against issued an emergency declaration for fire danger on Tuesday, although they did weigh the option against warnings the area has several days ahead where dry fuels are contributing to extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

Jim Spratlen, county emergency manager, said dry fuels, high winds and drought indicate concern is critical for the next five days. He appeared before the county commission, discussing his correspondence on the situation with a local fire battalion chief, the National Weather Service and U.S. Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

The current assessment in part uses the burning index, commonly measured in fire danger rating systems, which considers how fast a fire could burn and how intensely it could spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith latest indices, the observed ones, we are definitely in the extreme fire danger zone, and we\u2019re going into extreme for the next five days,\u201d Spratlen said. \u201cThat\u2019s extreme because as we just mentioned, our resources are thin in the state of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials said neighboring counties may need to reply on each other for mutual aid during the initial hours or first few days if a major wildfire occurs.<\/p>\n

Gov. Jared Polis declared a statewide drought emergency last week, opening the door for the state to access funds for unmet needs, potentially request a federal disaster declaration and begin reducing water usage at department facilitates.<\/p>\n

Benefits of a local declaration allow the county to easily procure funds, gain additional support for suppression involving aircraft availability, more firefighters, as well as administrative support assisting Spratlen with emergency planning. Spratlen said it could involve better coordination, swifter service contracting, implementing protective measures or enacting water conservation measures and a fire ban, which are already in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t guarantee funding but it puts us a notch ahead where we can tell the state we need help \u2026 or they can move it forward to the federal government,\u201d Spratlen said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t change assets at this point, it\u2019s for us to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last June named Montezuma County a primary natural disaster area for the severe drought, prompting it to release emergency loans to producers.<\/p>\n

According to local officials, the present drought locally is unchanged \u2013 neither from conditions last year or in the past 20.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the board decided to postpone the decision for further discussion during their upcoming Monday session.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, the commissioners expressed several concerns regarding the formal declaration of an emergency or disaster. Commissioner Jim Candelaria voiced skepticism about the effectiveness of a declaration in securing financial aid.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that several other counties, including Archuleta and La Plata, were recently denied federal funding for significant events from the previous year.<\/p>\n

He said the state of Colorado is not receiving any federal funding and suggested the federal government might be out of money or realigning funds.<\/p>\n

Another point for concern was the specific \u201cmessaging\u201d it could send to the public.<\/p>\n

Candelaria argued that the county did not currently have an actual disaster, only the potential for one. He emphasized the current priority should be focused on prevention and reminding the public on wildfire preparedness through education.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we have one? Absolutely, and we have the means to move forward at that point,\u201d Candelaria said. \u201cI think its worth a discussion again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ugly out there,\u201d Spratlen said. \u201cI am doctor disaster \u2013 Mr. Doomsday \u2013 and I am always prepping for the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

awatson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials contemplate emergency planning in case major fire <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[350,28,60,109,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-132764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-county-commissioner","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132764"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=132764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}