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EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) - Fire chiefs from the ‘South Group’, are seeing an increase in wildland fires and wildland urban interface fires in recent years and created a new team to help respond to them. The South Group is made up of people from Security Fire Protection District, Hanover Fire Protection District, Fountain Fire Department, Stratmoor Hills Fire Protection District, Fort Carson Fire and Emergency Services, and Southwest Highway 115 Fire Protection District.
With the increase in fire activity, the Southern Colorado Interagency Wildland Fire Team was created in April 2022. The team will be lead by Superintendent Shane Coyne.
“I am sober to the work that continues ahead but honored and excited by this opportunity to create a new wildland fire team,” says superintendent Shane Coyne of the Southern Colorado Interagency Wildland Fire Team.
This newly formed team will consist of highly trained, motivated, and experienced wildland firefighters from across the region.
“On these red flag days were actually manning extra apparatus or combining it with apparatus that are already down here. So that when the fire call does come out, we’re on scene way quicker and we’re not trying to respond from various locations throughout the county to get here,” says Coyne.
With the increase in fires over the last few years, the team hopes they can provide new resources to the area and fight fires quicker than before.
“With this partnership and getting it formalized like this, is going to allow us to just make that one initial phone call versus 5-6 different calls to different agencies to say ‘hey do you have some people that you can send over?’” says Chief Robert Fisher, Fort Carson Fire and Emergency Services.
“In the big picture we just have to realize that fire season is all year long and that we can get a big fire anytime of the year. We can’t let our guard down, there’s no time to rest really. We always have to think that even if it’s December and we think there’s snow on the ground, we think it’s cold that fire could get up and move,” says Coyne. “Every time we’ve had a challenge or something to work through, we’ve made it through that and it has come together actually very quickly.”
A press conference was held Thursday to introduce the new team in the El Paso County area.
The team is 100% volunteer based and right now there’s around eighteen crew members on the team. This August, they will start recruiting more members to the team. If you would like to apply and volunteer, email them at SOCOwildlandfire@gmail.com.
“This team’s journey will always be a mountain with no top but we are driven by the desire to serve others,” says Coyne.
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Increase in wildland fires leads to creation of Southern Colorado Interagency Wildland Fire Team - KKTV
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