Cooperative Services Feasibility Study for 285 Corridor Fire Departments

Our District is currently evaluating information in the recently completed Cooperative Services Feasibility Study.

What does that mean? Here is some background and more information:

Our mountain fire departments have had mutual aid and automatic aid agreements for several years. More recently, we have collaborated and trained together even more, and we have increasingly utilized mutual resources. We’ve seen demonstrated results in our hugely successful Chipping and Home Assessment Programs, we’ve had increased personnel responding to fires, and we’ve been able to hire additional shared personnel such as our Fuels Crew and Wildland Mitigation Specialist. We’ve also won more grants to do more mitigation and fire prevention. Working together as a team is more efficient and saves money for each of the departments, and helps provide better services for you, the residents of our districts.

The natural extension of that process has been to ask if consolidation of any of the area districts ( Elk Creek Fire Protection District, Inter-Canyon Fire Protection District, North Fork Fire Protection District, and Indian Hills Fire Protection District ) makes sense as a next step.

To that end, in a combined effort, the four districts hired a consulting company earlier this year to conduct a feasibility study, assess each of the departments, provide a framework and options for what’s possible moving forward, and to present the pros and cons for our districts and residents regarding those options.

We have received that Cooperative Services Feasibility Study, and we are sharing it here with you. As always, we are committed to transparency, communication and information sharing, and feedback and involvement from the members of our district. We encourage you to read it and ask your fire chiefs any questions you may have. We’ll be holding public meetings in 2022 to go over this lengthy report in more detail and to hear thoughts and questions from the community.

It is important to note that the specific details or various suggestions contained in this study are by no means hard and fast commitments. What is presented here are options, ideas, reflections, and insights that were generated by the consulting company after several months of work. The company spent time learning about the fire districts, the staffing, the finances, the equipment, the risks in the districts, and numerous other facets. From here, they have offered the insights in this report. There is much to consider as we move forward, and no final decisions have yet been made.

Our goal will always be to provide you with the best service we can, with the most fiscal responsibility possible, all while addressing the challenges we, like many urban-rural interface fire departments across the country, face. We look forward to more conversations with you as we work together to create the best organizational structure we can, one that keeps our communities, our volunteers, and our staff safe and thriving.

You can access the Cooperative Services Feasibility Study here: elkcreekfire.org/consolidation/


Contact Info for Fire Chiefs:
Elk Creek Fire Chief Jacob Ware This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 303-816-9385
Inter-Canyon Fire Chief Skip Shirlaw This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 303-697-4413
North Fork Fire Chief Curt Rogers This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 303-838-2270
Indian Hills Fire Chief Mark Forgy This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 303-697-4568

Agency Consolidation Exploration Update 3/8/22:

Two Board of Directors representatives each from Indian Hills Fire Rescue, North Fork Fire Rescue, Inter-Canyon Fire Protection District, and Elk Creek Fire Department have begun meeting to explore together the contents of the Collaborative Services Study by the consulting firm, AP Triton LLC.

Additionally, the Fire Chiefs are touring one another's districts and meeting weekly.

You can find and read the study on each of the fire district's websites, and all Fire Chiefs encourage you to contact them with any questions. elkcreekfire.org/wp-content/uploads/cons...solidation-Study.pdf