SWEETWATER COUNTY — The Sweetwater County Commission voted 5-0 to have Sweetwater County opt into the Wyoming State Forestry Division’s FY 2024 Emergency Fire Suppression Account. 

“It’s an insurance policy. What the state has set up is an emergency suppression account and what it’s there for is to mitigate the impact of a disastrous fire,” Sweetwater County Fire Warden Jim Zimmerman said. 

According to the Forestry Division, “this account offers the most expeditious and effective means of mitigating the impact of a disastrous fire.”

The county’s initial assessment to join the account is $169,799, which is three times the annual fee. Each year after this year it will cost the county $56,599. 

Prior to this decision by the Commission, the County was not a participating county in this account, making it the only county in Wyoming that was not paying into it. Commissioner Robb Slaughter asked what the discussion was that took place with the former Commission that would have resulted in them choosing to not participate in this account. 

“It seems to me that this would be something that would be very beneficial and I can’t imagine why we’d not been part of it in the past,” Slaughter said. 

Commissioner Mary Thoman, who sat on the former Commission, said the decision was based around being a public lands county. The assumption was that the Bureau of Land Management would take care of the majority of the fire suppression, she said. 

“I know the other commissioners felt that we’re a public lands county, the BLM is going to cover most of the fires. But I have since been educated, and I think if ever there was a time to join it would be now,” Thoman said. 

Sweetwater County Fire District #1 Chief Scott Kitchner said that costs of fire suppression can raise into the millions quite easily, so participating in an account like this is beneficial and important. 

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge fire within Sweetwater County. The average fire around the state for a large to medium sized fire… is about $2-3 million. So that’s a bill that could potentially come back to the county, whether it’s on private land or public land or BLM land, forestry department land. Those are just the costs that federal agencies or public agencies would acquire for that fire,” Kitchner said. 

He explained how cost share agreements for fires work. 

“Depending upon how much of the fire is on your land, how much the fire is on their land, you divide that up. So that $2 million cost of that fire, if 60 percent of that fire is on public land, which is county land, you’d be responsible for 60 percent of that bill,” he said. 

He said that while the past couple of years have been slow for fires, the county is due for another big fire. 

“In 2021, 12 counties utilized [the account], in 2022 six counties utilized it. The last couple years have been pretty slow. This year we’re looking at potential of a pretty good year, or bad, with all the snow we have. We get a lot of moisture early means we have pretty rapid growth, and that’s what gets the fires going in Sweetwater County,” Kitchner said. 

Kitchner said that by Sweetwater County not being in this program, no fire service provider in the county is eligible to request funding from this program.

“So if I was to have a large fire in my fire district and it cost us $1.5 million, I could not go to the state and ask for that funding because the county is not in that program. So not only would you be helping yourself, but you’d be helping the district, you’d be helping Wamsutter, Granger, Superior, Rock Springs, Green River,” Kitchner said. 

Commissioner Island Richards said that due to cost savings in fire protection in the past year, there is enough money in the fire budget to cover the cost to join this program. 

“With our industrial siting money that we’ve been able to dedicate to fire protection this year… [and] with our service agreements that the previous commission has so thoughtfully got us into, we have saved way more than what this buy-in is,” Richards said. 

Warden Zimmerman confirmed that the county has “plenty” of money in the budget to cover this cost. The initial assessment is due by July 15.