{"id":99651,"date":"2018-05-22T20:31:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T02:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stolen-fire-equipment-worth-about-13000-found-near-silverton\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T20:31:22","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T02:31:22","slug":"stolen-fire-equipment-worth-about-13000-found-near-silverton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stolen-fire-equipment-worth-about-13000-found-near-silverton\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen fire equipment worth about $13,000 found near Silverton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango Herald file<br><br>A Fort Lewis College class on a field survey found emergency equipment that was stolen in November from the Silverton-San Juan Fire and Rescue Authority.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Emergency equipment stolen in November from the Silverton-San Juan Fire and Rescue Authority was located this week near the bottom of a steep mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a mystery,\u201d said Mike Maxwell, assistant fire chief. \u201cBut to take emergency equipment like that is just beyond the pale.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, the fire department ordered 18 emergency radio pagers at a cost of about $10,000. On Nov. 16, UPS delivered the packages to the station at 1450 Greene St. in Silverton.<\/p>\n

But while the boxes sat outside, someone stole them.<\/p>\n

Then, two weeks later, someone stole more boxes left outside the station that contained six fire helmets, which cost $3,000.<\/p>\n

The fire department put out a plea on social media to the person who stole the boxes, saying if the emergency equipment was returned, there would be no questions asked.<\/p>\n

But no one came forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bad deal for us,\u201d said Fire Chief Gilbert Archuleta. \u201cThose pagers are used to page out emergencies and those helmets protect our guys when they\u2019re fighting fires. Who would take emergency equipment that protects people?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire department thought it would never see the equipment again and would have to take the loss. The Silverton-San Juan Fire and Rescue Authority is an all-volunteer crew that works on a tight budget.<\/p>\n

But then, on Monday, the equipment turned up.<\/p>\n

That day, Fort Lewis College professor David Gonzales took his geology class of about 22 students up to Silverton to hike around and create geologic maps of the area.<\/p>\n

The class was in the Deadwood Gulch area, which is about 1\u00bd miles south of Silverton off U.S. Highway 550. The spot has a waterfall on the west side of the highway and a steep drop-off on the east side.<\/p>\n

While the class was hiking down the steep slope, they found a box that contained six emergency radio pagers. And on Tuesday, they found the remaining pagers and the package containing the helmets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found everything they were missing,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cThey were just thrown off the highway. Some were hundreds of feet down the hill, and a few were just a hundred feet off the road. It\u2019s pretty crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire department, of course, was delighted by the news that the equipment had been found. Six pagers tested Monday were still operational, and the rest are being tested Tuesday. And the helmets were in good condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re buying them lunch,\u201d Maxwell said of Gonzales and his class.<\/p>\n

The boxes were unopened, which leads the fire department to believe the person who stole the packages took them, drove up a big hill and tossed them off the mountain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not likely the culprit will be found, Maxwell said, but at least the fire department has its important, life-saving equipment back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I can understand if someone stole a bunch of boxes of Omaha steaks,\u201d Maxwell said. \u201cBut this is emergency equipment that saves people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

finds packages that went missing in November<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[168,1562,327,74],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-crime","tag-san-juan-county-colorado","tag-silverton","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99651","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=99651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99651"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}