LAKEWOOD, Colo. — As firefighters work to fully contain the Salt and South Fork fires burning in New Mexico, a team of Colorado first responders is helping as damage support.
West Metro Fire Rescue is the host of Colorado Task Force-1, a search and rescue crew. The team of 45 is currently stationed at a Walmart in Ruidoso, New Mexico.
Program Manager Bob Olme said the team got the call to respond down south about a week after the fires' starts.
"We left at 4 a.m. Friday morning and we’ve been working every day since then," Olme said.
Olme said team members have been putting in 14 hours of work each day, canvassing neighborhoods burned to rubble in search of potential fire victims.
According to West Metro Fire, as of Wednesday, the task force has covered nearly 6,000 acres and searched 937 structures.
"It's tedious work," Olme said. "It's hard work."
He said the response has been admirable and positive so far — no victims have been identified by his team. However, two people are confirmed to be dead following the fires' tear through towns.
At the forefront of Olme's task force is Brian Ertle, leader of the team. Ertle has been up close with the devastation since the crew was deployed.
"You do look at it as, this was somebody's property and they lost everything," Ertle said. "But mostly, what we're making sure of is that there's nobody around that lost their life here."
Ertle said the team has been getting support from a K9 team to search each home.
"They are human remains detection K9s and they're mostly sniffing for human remains," Ertle explained. "We haven't come across any yet, but, and that's great news, right? But if we do find something, that also can bring closure to a family."
Ertle said incoming weather and storms are impacting their search and rescue efforts. While rain may help containment efforts, it has the team preparing for possible water rescues.
"We are inside of the burn area where a lot of the houses were destroyed and we keep getting spontaneous rain showers and we've seen a flash flood happen in the area that we are in where we had to pull our crews out of that area for safety," Ertle said.
Ertle said there isn't currently an end date for the team to head home, which includes him heading back to base at West Metro Fire.
"So they have specific areas that are identified by the incident and the local incident command and that's where we are working," Ertle said. "And when we finish those areas, then we could be getting close to being completed with our mission."
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