Summit County and Forest Service discuss who pays for fighting fire

The suppression effort surrounding the Peak 2 fire in July near Breckenridge ultimately totaled more than $2 million, and Summit County and the U.S. Forest Service are now close to terms on who will foot which parts of the bill.

On Tuesday at its regular meeting, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved kicking in as much as $400,000 out of its annual fire mitigation account as part of a cost-share agreement. The compact now heads to the sheriff — the individual who technically oversees county fire response as the statutory fire warden — for review before final feedback and approval through the Forest Service’s Dillon Ranger District.

Who should cough up the coin to cover the weeklong emergency response came into focus shortly after the human-triggered wildland fire on U.S. forestlands. Just 2 miles north of Breckenridge, it reached a comfortable containment percentage on July 11.

What started on July 5 as a small brush fire rapidly expanded to an 84-acre blaze within striking distance of upwards of 450 homes that were evacuated in the Peak 7 area and necessitated a stepped-up Type I fire deployment to snuff it out.

“If this fire didn’t come within a mile of Breckenridge, of a community this dense, it’s very likely they would have never brought in a Type I team,” said Commissioner Dan Gibbs, also a certified wildlands firefighter. “But the complexity, the uncertainty of being so close to homes, they thought it was very appropriate to bring in a Type I team, and Type I teams are not cheap. We felt like contributing was important.”