w w w . c o r t e z j o u r n a l . c o m n e w s @ c o r t e z j o u r n a l . c o m

electionn Ballots due today.

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SportSn Mortensen wins 500.

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educationn Local graduates receive GEDs.Page 1B

Serving Cortez and Southwestern Colorado for more

than a century.

VOL. 123, No. 037

tueSday

FIFTY CENTS

June 26, 2012

weber fire

By KimBerly BenedictJournal Staff Writer

MANCOS — As the Weber Fire continued to grow Sunday and into Monday, a Type II federal firefighting crew assumed control of operations, taking over for the San Juan Type III team, which has been on the ground since late Fri-day afternoon.

Rocky Mountain Type II Inci-dent Management Team C ar-rived in the Mancos area Sunday afternoon and took over the battle against the Weber blaze ar 6 p.m. that night, relieving local crews, many of who had been fighting the fire for 48 straight hours.

Connie Clementson, Bureau of Land Management agency admin-istrator for the Weber Fire, made the decision to call in the Type II team from their base in South Da-kota when it became clear the fire exceeded the resources of local management teams and would re-quire more time than local teams normally commit to wildland fires.

“The Type III teams are the in-teragency first response teams,” Clementson said at incident com-mand located at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds on Monday morning. “They are the ones who

respond first to smoke calls and try to get on fires right away. We needed to be able to pull those people off this fire and allow them to get rest and then be able to uti-lize them if other fires break out in other locations.”

Beth Hermanson, public infor-mation officer for Team C, said the Type II team doesn’t necessar-ily provide more experience than local response teams, but they do provide an additional level of training and strategic planning capabilities for dealing with large fires, such as the local blaze.

“Type II is your basic level of firefighting,” Hermanson said. “Those teams are often made up of volunteers and local agencies. With Type III teams, we have been all over the U.S. managing fires. This is our job.”

Team C began operations on the Weber Fire by shadowing Type III members, learning the geography of the region and the behavior of the fire, Hermanson said. The new crews were given information on what work had been done on the fire already and what strategy the Type III team had implemented in the region.

Officials with the federal team

Change in commandFederal team takes over the Weber Fire battle

Inside today’s Journal

■ Photos pages 6-7A ■ Evacuaee stories,Page 2A ■ Bridge Shelter opens for

evacuaees, Page 3A ■ Mancos community shows

firefighter support, Page 5A ■ Fire line key, Page 2B ■ Updates: Go to cortezjour-

nal.com

■ Acreage burned: 8,300 ■ Containment: ten percent ■ Fire personnel: 240 ■ Road closures: County

Road G at County Road 41; County Road J at County Road 41; County Road 46 at Highway 160

■ Weber Fire is now ranked as the third-highest wildfire priority in the nation, be-hind the High Park Fire in northern Colorado and the Waldo Canyon Fire, in Mani-tou Springs.

■ Red Cross evacuation cen-ter now at Montezuma-Cor-tez High School 317-4019.

■ Incident command center moved to Montezuma Coun-ty Fairgrounds.

■ FEMA funding authorizes use of federal funds to Mon-tezuma County to fight the fire at 75 percent of the cost.

■ Community briefing loca-tion moved to the Mancos High School performing arts center, at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. daily.

■ Limited water usage order issued by Montezuma Coun-ty Sheriff ’s Office for the Mancos Rural Water District to preserve available drink-ing water. Homes due west to due north asked to not water down roofs.

■ Mancos Fire Hotline at 970-564-4999 or 970-564-4996

■ Latest information from the U.S. Forest Service: http://www.fs.usda.gov/san-juan.

■ Inciweb fire incident in-formation: http://www.inci-web.org/incident/2937.

■ Fire perimeter map: http://www.g e omac.g ov/view er/viewer.shtml.

■ Wildfire resoure informa-tion from CSU extension of-fice: http://www.ext.colo-state.edu/fire/index.html

■ Mesa Verde is open. All services and facilities at na-tional park are open despite the wildfires burning east of the park. Restriction in the Park: No open fires are per-mitted within Mesa Verde National Park; no smoking is permitted outside of an en-closed vehicle within Mesa Verde National Park

■ Sign outside Zuma Natural Foods: “Firefighters & Offi-cers, THANK YOU!! Coffee’s on us!”

■ “You can expectt incident command at the (Montezu-ma County) fairgrounds to begin to resemble a small city. We are just going to work to hold our own until we get those resources.” — Deputy Incident Command-er Jay Esperance

■ “I’m so grateful at what they are doing for us. They are doing everything to save our structures and we owe them everything. This com-munity has come around us and it has just meant so much.” — Evacuee Stacy Hess

w e b e r w e b e r w e b e r f i r e f i r e f i r e

iii NNN fff O A N D O A N D O A N D TTT iii DDD i bi bi b T ST ST S

By michael mareshJournal Staff Writer

Weber Fire evacuees who de-cide to take advantage of the American Red Cross resources at Montezuma-Cortez High School will be offered food, a place to sleep, shelter, clothes, medical services and non-alcoholic bever-ages.

The evacuation center was moved to M-CHS from the per-forming arts center in Mancos on

Monday for two reasons — the larger size and the possibility the fire could switch directions to-ward Mancos.

Ed Bulloch, a Red Cross volun-teer who is stationed at M-CHS, said the school could handle more than 400 evacuees.

If by chance the center reaches its capacity, Bulloch said that is when a call would be made to the national chapter to get the ball

Making people feel comfortableEvacuation staff do their best to offer a home while the fire rages

See change on Page 9a

Journal/Sam Green

A helicopter dumps water around a house as flames break out on the hill-side above.

See feel on Page 5a

Journal/Sam Green

chris Zoller discusses the fire as a hot spot on Road 41 smolders.

By michael maresh and dale shrull

Journal Staff Writers

After more than three long, intense days, the zero has come off the board.

At the 7:30 p.m. Monday briefing at Mancos High School, officials reported that the We-ber Fire is now 10 percent con-tained.

The fast-moving Weber Fire started around 4:20 p.m. Friday about three miles south of Man-cos and now stands at an esti-mated 8,300 acres as of Monday night.

This was the first full day of firefighting with the Type II fed-eral team in charge. The total number of personnel fighting the blaze is now at 240.

Ed Waggoner, operations sec-tion chief for the Type II team, said he anticipates the contain-ment percentage number to be higher by today.

John Lowe, incident com-mander, said that Monday’s firefighting efforts were very productive.

“We got some good weath-er today but things could go wrong, we need to put this to bed as soon as possible,” he

said.The plan for the next three

days is to attack the fire at day and night, Waggoner said.

During the day, fire line crews will do preparation work, then at night, back burns will be con-ducted when the fire is not as active.

Waggoner said the goal is to have the fire contained within six days if weather cooperates.

Fire crews will be attacking and working on three separate sections of the fire.

Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell was complimen-tary of fire crews and other offi-cials who helped fight the blaze.

“Today was a good day. I’m amazed at the work these peo-ple have done for our commu-nity,” he said.

According to the news re-lease, evacuation advisories remain in place for Echo Ba-sin, County Road L, County Road 44, and the south side of Mancos. Road closures are in place to keep the area clear for incoming firefighting resourc-es within the fire perimeter; they include County Road G at County Road 41, County Road J at County Road 41, County Road 46 at Highway 160.

Weber Fire now 10 percent contained