Chief's Corner : Commitment to Our Community

Wildfire Evacuation Planning

Wilfire Evacuation Planning
Evergreen Fire/Rescue, our surrounding fire districts and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office continue to coordinate efforts in wildfire response and attack. EFR, for example, worked with the Sheriff's Office and other agencies on developing a pre-plan document the deputies can use in the case of a wildfire to help guide them in decision making.

Our greatest challenge is the dynamic nature of wildfires, which is dependent on temperature, relative humidity, fuel moisture, topography, fuel load, wind speed, wind direction, time of day and forecasted weather in the coming hours. All of these variables are what makes pre-planning evacuation routes very difficult.  We, like all other responding agencies, put life safety first when faced with a fast moving event like a wildfire. A unified command is established in a command post, where we then determine the size of the evacuation area, the direction of travel for the evacuees, and a shelter location for people to go based on the fire conditions generated by all the variables listed here, and more. Law enforcement then executes that plan while the fire department attacks the fire.  

We ask our community members to become familiar with the different ways to exit their neighborhoods and to leave early. Law enforcement will direct traffic, stop ingress into areas we are evacuating, and work to keep traffic flowing out. We are aware of the bottlenecks and the pinch points in areas of our community and where possible, will move people out in multiple directions. This will all depend on the fire and smoke conditions at the time.  

Hopefully, this helps you understand the dynamic nature of wildfire and why we have to make evacuation route decisions depending on the fire conditions.

The following links are some resources for your preparedness and awareness: