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Flagstaff officials outline '5 Es' wildfire strategy, stress preparedness as dry conditions persist
Summary
Fire department and partners presented the city—s multi-pronged wildfire approach at the Feb. 18 council meeting, emphasizing education, enforcement, engineering, economic incentives and emergency response and describing water-system resilience and community mitigation programs.
City of Flagstaff firefighters, emergency managers and county partners briefed the City Council on Feb. 18 on a comprehensive wildfire-preparedness strategy that centers on five lines of mitigation — education, enforcement, engineering, economic incentive and emergency response — and on community partnerships to reduce risk ahead of the 2025 fire season.
Fire officials described current preparations, training and systems that undergird response capacity, and outlined programs to reduce neighborhood vulnerability. The presentation covered the department—s staffing and wildfire-management resources, the city—s water-supply resilience, community education programs and fuel-reduction projects funded in part with voter-approved and outside grants.
"We have to treat this as a team sport," the Fire Chief said, summarizing the presentation. He described the department—s structure: 90 firefighters, nine wildland staff and supporting prevention and logistics teams. Chief and staff stressed the role of the Wildland Fire Management fund in stabilizing seasonal wildfire staffing and enabling a sustained wildfire-management unit.
Paul Otroge, Wildland Fire Battalion Chief, described the Ready, Set, Go public-preparedness program and a new Wildland Fire Action Guide residents can use to prepare properties and evacuation plans. Neil Chapman, Wildland Fire Captain, said the department has distributed thousands of home-assessment reports and is piloting software to generate follow-up compliance reminders to homeowners about defensible-space tasks.
"Ready is the state we want homeowners to be in all the time — raked yard, plans for medications and pets. Set is when an incident is coming. Go is evacuate early and go to a prearranged location," Otroge said.
Lee Williams, interim Operations Section Director for Water Services, briefed council on water-system capacity. He said Flagstaff can produce roughly 20 million gallons per day and holds about 21 million gallons in storage systemwide, and that an earlier 2018 council directive to add diesel generators and transfer switches has increased resilience when power disruptions happen. Williams also noted that all city hydrants meet a local design goal of at least 1,000 gallons per minute capability for firefighting flows.
Emergency Management Director Stacy Rekonigz and Emergency Manager Daniel Kelly described new preparedness planning work: a completed citywide emergency-operations plan, an approved continuity-of-operations plan and planned work on a disaster-recovery plan. Rekonigz highlighted the RAVE alert system now in use internally and noted coordination with county and other partners for public alerts.
Coconino County and partner representatives described a countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) effort covering rural fire districts and tribal communities; that regional work is intended to qualify communities for additional federal grant funds and to establish action plans for fuel reduction, firefighter readiness and post-fire flood-risk mitigation.
Council members and the city manager raised concern about recent federal staffing and budget uncertainty among U.S. Forest Service and other federal partners; staff said federal partners remain engaged but confirmed the situation is evolving and that the city is monitoring implications for access to federal crews and equipment.
Public-safety takeaways: the department recommended continuing community outreach, accelerating home-assessment and mitigation programs in high-risk neighborhoods, sustaining training for firefighters (the department requires a minimum annual wildland training standard for all firefighters), and continuing coordination with county, state and federal agencies. City staff also emphasized that community-level investments in defensible space and home hardening remain the most effective way to reduce structure loss in fast-moving fires.
What happens next: staff will continue community education and mitigation programs (for example, Hazardous Fuel Mitigation grants and homeowner reimbursement programs); the county and city will pursue CWPP funding opportunities; and the city will continue weekly multiagency restriction calls and operational coordination as the season begins.
