{"id":34676,"date":"2023-04-12T16:02:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T22:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-wildfire-investigators-would-get-funding-trained-dogs-under-new-bill\/"},"modified":"2023-04-12T22:02:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T22:02:33","slug":"colorado-wildfire-investigators-would-get-funding-trained-dogs-under-new-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-wildfire-investigators-would-get-funding-trained-dogs-under-new-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado wildfire investigators would get funding, trained dogs under new bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Kruger Rock fire continues to burn in Estes Park on Nov. 16. A wildfire in the town that serves as a gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park has prompted some residents and businesses to be evacuated. Firefighters said the fire is burning Tuesday near Kruger Rock southeast of downtown Estes Park. (RJ Sangosti\/The Denver Post via AP)<\/span>RJ Sangosti<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s beleaguered wildland fire investigators may finally be getting some help.<\/p>\n

Legislation that would provide $2.8 million for more investigators and specially trained fire investigation dogs is gradually moving through the state Senate.<\/p>\n

Final passage is not guaranteed, but the money for the initiative is already baked into the state budget, and there has so far been general agreement among the Democratic majority that the resources are needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really do need the funding to help with investigations,\u201d said state Sen. JoAnn Ginal, D-Fort Collins, at a March 1 hearing. She said more wildfire investigations could help the state \u201cget to the root of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the state\u2019s largest and most destructive wildfires were found to have been caused by humans, but how and by whom are often never determined in Colorado.<\/p>\n

A 2022 Colorado Public Radio investigation that prompted the legislation found that of all the states in the West<\/a>, Colorado has the worst rate of determining the ignition source of large, human-started wildfires. The state also has fewer investigators and less coordination at the state level than neighboring states.<\/p>\n

If the bill passes a full state Senate vote and is approved by the state House and Gov. Jared Polis, it will increase the state\u2019s wildfire investigation budget by $2.8 million annually to provide funding for seven more investigators and additional trained canines.<\/p>\n

A similar bill failed in the 2022 legislative session.<\/p>\n

Decades of wildfire suppression and climate change have expanded the annual wildfire season in the West, leading to more wildfires that burn more intensely. Roughly nine out of every 10 wildfires in the United States are started by humans.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Jefferson County, chaired last year\u2019s Wildfire Matters Review Committee and said this year\u2019s bill is one of the committee\u2019s top policy recommendations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we fund investigations, that\u2019ll provide the data we need to kind of track these things and help shape our path moving forward,\u201d Cutter said.<\/p>\n

Mike Morgan, director of the state Division of Fire Prevention and Control, testified in support of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil you have the cause and origin, it\u2019s really hard to address the prevention side of things if you don\u2019t know exactly what\u2019s going on,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n

Local fire chiefs are responsible for investigating the cause of all fires within their jurisdiction. Morgan said that some well-funded fire departments in the Denver metro area have the resources to successfully investigate most fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, there\u2019s about 375 fire departments across the state and probably about 325 of them don\u2019t have those resources,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The state currently employs just one wildland fire investigator to fill in all those gaps in rural communities.<\/p>\n

Only a handful of the state\u2019s local fire departments or county sheriff\u2019s offices employ trained wildfire investigators. Most fire departments have few resources and are staffed by volunteer firefighters, who may not have the time or training to investigate how wildfires are started.<\/p>\n

After two and a half years, investigators have determined that humans started the two largest wildfires in the state\u2019s history, but have yet to announce the official ignition source for the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak fires.<\/p>\n

At the March 1 hearing, Republican senators opposed the bill on the basis of cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I don\u2019t disagree, it\u2019s probably needed, you know, that $2.8 million as a continuing apportionment, I just have problems with that,\u201d Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling said. He said continuing to pass bills that require millions of dollars each year would bloat the state budget until it is no longer sustainable.<\/p>\n

The bill will head to a full Senate vote next, then needs to pass the House before reaching the Governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

Katie Jones, deputy press secretary for Polis, said the governor \u201csupports investments that will improve our ability to investigate and understand wildfires, which can provide important information to create more efficient mitigation strategies\u201d and looks forward to reviewing the final version of the bill.<\/p>\n

For more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2022 Colorado Public Radio investigation prompts legislation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1362,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-southwest-life","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34676","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=34676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34676"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}