As of this evening, May 18, 2022, we are nearly complete with containment and have placed all residents back into their homes. We have released aviation assets to help with the fire in Pagosa Springs and will keep a type 4 state team here with our assets to wind down the fire for the next few weeks. Teller County suffered no loss of structures, loss of life or serious injury including our first responders and the hundreds that came to help from other counties, the state, and the federal government.
We will be sitting down with the state over the next few days to reconcile all costs and Teller County will be in good financial shape and prepared for any future fire. I just completed a call with Governor Polis. I expressed the County’s gratitude for the swift and overwhelming support we received from the State and Federal agencies in helping us stop this fire at just under 1600 acres in 6 days. The high number and type of aircraft and ground hotshot teams along with our firefighters and those of neighboring counties and agencies made the difference between losing control of this fire and stopping it here in Teller County.
Teller County punched above its weight once again. We set a very high bar for integrated cooperation and leadership at all levels and performance on the ground. As a result of lessons learned here the state will look at expanding its capability to react to multiple fires at the same time with significant assets.
I want to personally thank all of our volunteers and our residents who displayed a high level of trust and cooperation with County leadership as their cooperation made our jobs easy. We will also be reviewing lessons learned in the coming weeks and will work to streamline our processes even more in the coming months
Dan Williams
Chairman
Teller County Board of County Commissioners
