FRUITA — Despite losing three firefighters in the beginning of what is promising to be a very active fire year, Brian Fennessy, director of the newly created U.S. Department of Interior’s Wildland Fire Service, said he has confidence in the new agency. He said he anticipates it will result in a more robust ability to attack fires with unified resources.
“I want to emphasize that this is truly a unified response. This brings the full strength of the wildland fire community together,” Fennessy said following a press conference Monday with Gov. Jared Polis. The press conference took place outside a Fruita school that is now serving as the Incident Command Center for the Snyder fire that has burned over 29,000 acres west of Fruita.
When three firefighters died after they were cut off from any escape route in the rugged and remote Knowles Canyon area on Saturday, there was no incident command established to direct firefighting resources. Firefighters were being dispatched by individual fire agencies. Officials aren’t saying yet who ultimately made the call.
Two of the three firefighters who died were serving with the Rifle Helitack crew. They have been identified as Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan, and Sydney Watson, 27, Warrior, Alabama. The third deceased firefighter was Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona. He was assigned to a crew based at the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona.
Two of their fellow firefighters were injured and are in stable condition, according to Polis. He said they are being treated at a Denver hospital.
State fire officials pledge thorough investigation of Snyder fire deaths
Polis declared a disaster Sunday to provide help retrieving the firefighters’ bodies from the canyon where they died. He expanded that declaration Monday to aid the fighting of five fires that are now burning in Colorado.
He also ordered flags flown at half-staff to honor the fallen firefighters.
Polis was joined by U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, who also expressed their gratitude to the fallen firefighters.
“It is a tough time to already be here in what is going to be a very, very tough fire season,” Bennet said.
Neither Bennet nor Hickenlooper addressed the change in the way that fire agencies operate — a change that went into effect in January at the direction of the Trump administration.
The change combines the firefighting capabilities of six agencies, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The change has been controversial because it was created at the administrative level without input from Congress. It followed massive layoffs from public lands agencies under President Trump.
Fennessy, who has decades of firefighting experience, is enthusiastic about the new Wildland Fire Service agency and stressed that it is not simply a partnership that exists on paper. He said the new agency operates as “a team in constant communication.”
Firefighters died last weekend, Fennessy said, “because they had no escape route” when erratic winds caused flames to overtake them. The Wildland Fire Service on Sunday said a “serious accident investigation team” is reviewing the incident.
“It is too early to speculate on whether they should have been there or not,” Fennessy said.
Other fire officials who joined Polis promised that there would be a full investigation into the deadly incident.
Bystanders pay their repects to the three fallen firefighters as they hold their salutes during the entire time while the long procession of emergency vehicles passes in Grand Junction on Monday. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Because of the extreme fire danger in the state, Polis encouraged Coloradans to celebrate the Fourth of July “without lighting anything on fire.” He suggested people play games with watermelons and hold bike parades instead of lighting off fireworks.
Polis and the officials who joined him in the press conference Monday took part in a 75-minute procession through Grand Junction to carry the bodies of the firefighters from a hospital morgue to funeral homes.
People lined many of the roadways waving flags, saluting, and holding hands over their hearts as the cortege of firefighters and law enforcement made its way through town with lights flashing.
