{"id":22677,"date":"2025-04-15T22:59:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T04:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-theres-an-emergency-call-911-not-the-cortez-fire-protection-district\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:16:20","slug":"when-theres-an-emergency-call-911-not-the-cortez-fire-protection-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-theres-an-emergency-call-911-not-the-cortez-fire-protection-district\/","title":{"rendered":"When there\u2019s an emergency, call 911 \u2013 not the Cortez Fire Protection District"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A Cortez Fire Protection District ladder truck. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Cortez Fire Protection District urges residents to call 911 for emergency service, saying that increased calls to the first responders wastes time and money.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust yesterday, we each got two calls,\u201d said Cortez Fire Chief Roy Wilkinson, looking to Battalion Chief Rick Spencer, who nodded in agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery week, there\u2019s more and more,\u201d said Spencer.<\/p>\n

They remembered how during a fire last year, at least 25 people called them.<\/p>\n

Wilkinson wasn\u2019t sure whether to blame old fridge magnets or Siri and cellphones that direct folks to call the fire district \u2013 whatever it is, an \u201cinflux\u201d of community members are calling them for things like fires and car wrecks.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalling in here is dangerous because it takes time, and we aren\u2019t always here anyway,\u201d said Spencer. \u201cIt takes way longer to dial a 10-digit number than the three in 911.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, people only man the phones at Cortez Fire Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

A story recently published<\/a> in a town called Somers, Connecticut \u2013 a town more than 2,150 miles from Cortez \u2013 expresses the same concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone calls the station instead of 911, the call may go unanswered or cause significant delays in response. In emergency situations, every second counts,\u201d Somers Fire Chief David Lenart said in the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everywhere!\u201d Wilkinson exclaimed.<\/p>\n

Spencer added that how, depending on fire load, fires can double in size every minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get to them as quick as possible,\u201d he said. \u201cReally, our goal is to get the appropriate resources to an emergency in the quickest time possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

So next time there\u2019s an emergency, dial three digits \u2013 911 \u2013 instead of 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it be a fire or car crash, in an emergency, always call 911<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22677","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=22677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77808,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22677\/revisions\/77808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22677"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}