Fire districts across the state are struggling with a cascading set of challenges, including decreased funding and increased costs.

From the Western Slope to the Eastern Plains, firefighters are wondering how they can best serve the public to put out structure fires, control wildland blazes, and respond to medical calls.

One area that has drawn conversation is Durango Fire Protection District (DFPD) in Southwest Colorado. Fire chief Randy Black penned an open letter to the community in January, spurred on by issues raised by the deadly wildfire that month in Los Angeles.

“Our intent is we want to motivate people,” Black said in an interview. “We want to support people. We want to support our public. We want to say you really do need to engage. At the point things are burning, it’s too late to take any action.”

The district’s attempt at engaging with its community has worked. Black said the district has received more than 100 requests for free fire mitigation consultations, a number that isn’t typically seen during the slow winter season.

Officials said DFPD faces funding issues that are being felt statewide, but the nature of the district also creates other challenge unique to Durango. In Colorado, district funding is connected to property taxes, which have been rising in recent years. However, reallocation of those taxes by the legislature have meant that fire budgets have not gone up. Plus, it doesn’t look like there will be a quick fix from the Capitol, they said.

Colorado SB24-194, signed into law last year, allows fire districts to implement impact fees and sales taxes, but such measures have to be approved by voters.

That’s where DFPD has another problem.

The City of Durango is not in the district. Rather, DFPD services the city via a contract. So, if DFPD wants to ask voters for taxes, the district first have to run an election in the fire district — which voters inside city limits can’t vote on — and then run another election with city voters.

This is both logistically challenging and costly — a setup that is unusual in Colorado, Black said.

In Montrose, fire chief Tad Rowan said that tax assessments have been a “constant moving target.”

“Up until this legislative session, each and every year, there has been some sort of change to residential assessment rates, commercial assessment rates, ag assessment rates, all of those things taking place in the Capitol that make it very difficult — for particularly fire protection districts, which are primarily property tax funded — to adequately plan and determine what their revenues are going to be moving forward, and that’s been a real struggle,” Rowan said.

The new ability for fire districts to implement a sales tax will be valuable to districts going forward, Rowan said, with the caveat that all taxes must be TABOR compliant.

Without adequate funding channels, fire departments can’t recruit and retain talent to their workforce, officials said.

Black has a hard time offering his employees a salary that competes with higher paying jobs on the Front Range, especially as cost of living is a challenge in communities like Durango.

In Montrose, Rowan said his district is seeing a drop in applications and in the quality of candidates for open positions. There isn’t one answer to why, but he said pay, desire for remote jobs, or stress and burnout in the emergency services could play a role.

Rising costs and delivery delays for fire trucks and other equipment are being felt in Montrose, Durango and across the nation.

In January 2022, DFPD ordered three fire trucks, but they weren’t delivered for two years. By October 2022, they ordered three more, with the first truck from that order arriving last week, in February 2025. In that 10-month span in 2022, the price of one truck model went up $100,000, Black said.

Rowen adds that funding uncertainties combined with long lead times makes it hard to plan for equipment needs numerous years in the future.

Industry consolidation — fire engine manufacturing is primarily controlled by three companies — in addition to labor shortages and supply chain delays is having an impact nationwide, according to The New York Times.

These issues are felt statewide.

The Salida fire chief recently raised concerns about funding in the wake of canceled grants and increased equipment costs. In Steamboat Springs, a proposed merger between the city-run fire department and surrounding fire district has been raised by a city councilmember. That could ease funding concerns for the ski town’s first responders.

The southwest corner of the state has had a dry winter; the snowpack is at 64% of the median, as measured by Snow Water Equivalent. There have already been some wildfire calls in January and February in the area, and additional fires are almost a certainty.

Montrose and central Colorado are doing better, and northern Colorado, including Summit County, are nearing or exceeding 100% of the median snowpack.

The federal spending freeze has paused grant money from the Environmental Protection Agency that DFPD planned to use for mitigation near subdivisions west of town, but Black said they should be able to tap into other funds.

Despite a challenging set of circumstances, both Black and Rowan are confident they can meet the needs of their communities.

On the topic of wildfire, Black said that local, regional and federal agencies work exceptionally well together in his part of the state, and relationships have only gotten stronger since 2018’s 416 Fire north of Durango. The city’s water system is also great, the official said, adding that, despite challenges, firefighters will still bend over backwards to respond to emergencies.

“We’re able to take care of our community right now,” Rowan said. “We don’t have a huge budget shortfall. We don’t have to close fire stations. We don’t have to take drastic measures because of all of these complexities that are going on. We’re able to keep our head above water and maintain quality service to our area.”