{"id":133812,"date":"2026-06-18T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-fire-protection-district-advertises-open-house-seeks-volunteers\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T23:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:15:58","slug":"dolores-fire-protection-district-advertises-open-house-seeks-volunteers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-fire-protection-district-advertises-open-house-seeks-volunteers\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores Fire Protection District advertises open house, seeks volunteers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolores
Dolores Fire and Rescue crews have fewer than 20 people, many with full-time job obligations. Fire Chief Kim Jones said recruiting 25 to 30 more volunteers would be ideal for the district. (Journal file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

With summer starting hot and dry, the Dolores Fire Protection District is feeling the heat in more ways than one. The entire volunteer department is seeking more responders to handle 911 calls and fire reports.<\/p>\n

Dolores Fire will host an open house from 12 to 4 p.m. June 27 at 47 Railroad Ave.<\/p>\n

The open house presents an opportunity to learn about volunteer firefighting and will consist of a meet and greet with current volunteers, education about the department\u2019s operations, children\u2019s activities and a live fire demonstration if weather permits. The department will sell address signs and display its equipment while serving free hot dogs and hamburgers to attendees.<\/p>\n

Fire Chief Kim Jones said the department has less than 20 volunteers and only a few available 24\/7 for assistance. With 37 years of experience \u2013 originally as a firefighter with Rico\u2019s volunteer fire department \u2013 Jones works most days, and said she would love to recruit at lease 25 more volunteers to support the essential service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting down to the nail, and we\u2019re needing to try to recruit some new people in our community and in our fire protection district,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As many volunteers have full-time jobs and are unavailable during many weekday hours, the department relies heavily upon neighboring fire districts such as Cortez Fire Protection District, which has full-time paid staff members, for support.<\/p>\n

Those interested in volunteering need to take several courses and become CPR and first-aid certified. The department sponsors certification courses and also offers training for prospective firefighters on the third and fourth Tuesdays of every month.<\/p>\n

Volunteers respond to a wide range of emergency situations, including fire, car accidents, and water and ice rescue while keeping a sharp eye on the weather report.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people that live in communities and call 911, they expect somebody to be there to help them on what could be their worst day ever,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou yourself would probably hope that if you called 911 that you\u2019d have somebody respond to help you. And in communities like these rural areas, it\u2019s so important to be able to provide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of Dolores Fire Protection District\u2019s new volunteers took a wildland fire class as Southwest Colorado prepares for a potentially active fire season.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning while Montezuma County was under a red flag warning, Lewis-Arriola Fire Department, which is also staffed with volunteers, responded to a structure fire near the 16000 block of County Road N, which was contained to one property but resulted in the loss of the property owners\u2019 home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty scary actually,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI think it\u2019s more a matter of when, not if.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said Dolores Fire Protection District has responded to more than 200 calls so far this year. She hopes the open house will bring out people from the community interested in serving in these essential roles.<\/p>\n

She recommended those interested in volunteering attend the open house and visit the fire station during their Tuesday evening meetings to ask questions about getting involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your neighbors that are responding on a call,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think the community needs to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A previous version of this story erred in one instance in referring to Fire Chief Kim Jones as \u201che.\u201d Jones uses the \u201cshe\u201d pronoun. The error was made in editing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Department asks residents to lend support<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[44,350,28,29,1310,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-133812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-dolores","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-safety-of-citizens","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133812","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=133812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135096,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133812\/revisions\/135096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133812"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=133812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}