The Estes Valley Fire Protection District will automatically dispatch resources to assist neighboring fire departments on confirmed fires under new agreements approved by the district board Monday, while district officials also continue working to reconstruct the history of a $900,000 capital reserve fund established nearly a decade ago.
The board approved intergovernmental agreements with the Pinewood Springs and Allenspark fire protection districts that expand existing mutual-aid relationships to include automatic aid.
Under traditional mutual aid, firefighters arrive at an incident, determine they need additional resources, and then request help. Automatic aid starts neighboring resources toward an incident immediately after a confirmed fire is dispatched.
Division Chief Justin Kearney said the change could save valuable time when help from neighboring departments may be 25 or 30 minutes away.
“If we are responding to any confirmed fire, they’re automatically paged to start heading our way, and we can always turn them around if we don’t need them,” Purney told the board.
The agreements work both ways. Estes Valley firefighters could be automatically dispatched to fires in the neighboring districts. However, departments can decline a response if they lack sufficient personnel or are handling another major incident.
Kearney estimated the arrangement could add roughly 10 automatic-aid calls annually involving each neighboring district. When resources are available, Estes Valley would generally send an engine and tender to a structure fire.
The board approved both agreements after adding language to the indemnification provisions stating that one district would not be required to indemnify another when personnel acted contrary to their department’s standard operating procedures or policies.
Wildland resource sharing continues
The board also approved a third amendment to a regional wildland deployment resource-sharing agreement.
The arrangement allows participating Northern Colorado fire agencies to combine personnel and equipment for wildland deployments in Colorado and elsewhere. Estes Valley joined the cooperative agreement in 2021.
Fire Chief Kevin Nunn said the arrangement could allow Estes Valley to provide an individual firefighter when another department has an engine, driver, and other personnel but needs someone to fill a particular position.
The district still has work to do before it can take full advantage of those opportunities, including updating its resource-rate agreement and continuing to build firefighter qualifications. Nunn estimated about two-thirds of the department’s firefighters currently have the qualifications needed for wildland deployments.
A board member noted that deployments also give volunteer and career firefighters opportunities to gain experience and complete qualifications needed for advancement.
The board unanimously approved the amendment.
District traces $900,000 capital reserve
A separate discussion focused on a question that has surfaced about approximately $900,000 placed in a district capital replacement fund years ago.
Board members and district staff stressed that they have found no indication of wrongdoing. Instead, they said they are trying to reconstruct older financial records to document precisely where the money went and how expenditures were recorded.
Treasurer Ryan Leahy said the district has been reviewing records dating to about 2016 and 2017 to identify transfers and expenditures from the reserve.
The District’s preliminary review indicates that $900,000 was deposited into a Colorado Surplus Asset Fund, or CSAFE, account around 2017 and that the District later used money from the account for capital expenses, including the District’s burn building, fire apparatus, and contributions to its volunteer pension program.
Leahy said the problem is not that officials believe money is missing, but that older records do not provide a clear, step-by-step trail showing how all of the transactions were handled.
“I don’t think we have anything that’s not accounted for,” Leahy said. “We just don’t have a clear picture of the process it took and how it was accounted for in the books.”
District officials have discussed whether a forensic audit might be necessary, but the District’s accounting firm recommended first working with the auditor to reconstruct the transactions.
Board president Sandra Smith asked staff and the District’s accountant to accelerate that review and return with as detailed an explanation as possible at the next regular meeting Oct. 26.
Revenues running ahead of budget
The District’s accountant also reported that revenues continue to run ahead of budget while overall expenses remain below budget year to date.
The district was approximately $180,000 over projected revenue and about $80,000 under projected expenses year to date, according to the financial report.
Managerial expenses, however, were running about $147,000 over budget, primarily because of professional and legal services. Professional-service expenses included work associated with the District’s November sales-tax measure. Legal expenses included work associated with both the ballot initiative and the hiring and contract negotiations for the District’s new fire chief.
The district has also moved previously identified impact-fee money into the proper impact-fee account.
Wildfire mitigation work advances
District staff reported continued progress on wildfire mitigation and prevention programs.
The district has completed at least 113 home assessments and 10 neighborhood assessments this year. A recent pine cone, pine needle, and noxious-weed collection produced about 2½ roll-off containers of material.
Work has also begun on Unit 3 of the District’s federally funded wildfire mitigation project, with contractors moving quickly through vegetation work.
The district recently completed another project on Prospect Mountain using the Larimer County Conservation Corps. The roughly eight-week project treated about 3.6 acres, according to the staff report.
Fire academy, Xcel partnership, and volunteers
The District’s 14-week fire academy is entering its 10th week with 12 students. Training is shifting from exterior firefighting skills toward interior operations, including air packs, ladders, smoke, and live-fire conditions.
The district is also developing a training partnership with Xcel Energy focused on natural-gas emergencies. Xcel has provided the department with equipment for shutting down certain gas lines, including a steel-line clamp supplied after a recent incident exposed a gap in the department’s equipment.
Firefighters recently used a YMCA cabin scheduled for demolition for realistic structure-fire training, including searches, water operations, roof ventilation and chainsaw work.
District officials also recognized eight members who have responded to at least 200 calls this year, in addition to completing their regular training requirements.
The board discussed additional ways to recognize firefighters who contribute significant volunteer time between the District’s annual award events.
The District’s next regular board meeting is scheduled for Oct. 26 at 4:30 p.m.
I urge everyone to support the Estes Valley Fire District’s goals for improvement and adequate funding. I also urge everyone to vote NO on using increased sales tax rates as the solution. Sales tax is not a stable source of long-term funding. The added half of a percent added to our already high sales tax rate is a lot. It would bring taxes in town to 9.45%. Estes Park already has a tax leakage problem, in that people leave town to shop for groceries, gas and other services instead of purchasing locally, partially due to the already high tax rate. The other issue is that this tax increase is largely a blank check given that the district currently has no approved plan for how to use the increased funding. There must be a better way, so vote NO on the proposed tax increase and force all involved to develop a better, more stable and fairer solution to a real community need.