NEDERLAND, Colo. (KDVR) — As investigators continue to sift through the debris, the Nederland Fire Protection District is sharing a new perspective about what it is like to fight a big fire in a small town.
Nederland has a population of about 1,500 people. However, the Nederland Fire Protection District spans 52 square miles and serves about 7,000 people.
“We don’t have a lot of population, so although we have a very large region, we don’t have that many people,” Chief Charlie Schmidtmann said.
Schmidtmann is one of six paid staff members at the department. The rest, about 24 firefighters, do the job on a volunteer basis.
“That’s what we rely on. We have to have that and that’s what makes the community so great, is that everyone is willing to come out when we need it,” Schmidtmann said.
When the Caribou Village complex went up in flames early Thursday morning, Schmidtmann says he was unsure about how much help he would have.
“The challenge is it’s volunteer, so people might have had a big day and turned off their phone,” he said. “You never know when a volunteer will be available.”
According to Schmidtmann, somewhere between 30 and 40 volunteer firefighters answered the call. The extra personnel came from neighboring volunteer fire departments to offer help before bigger agencies could respond.
Small town means a small amount of resources
Caribou Village housed about two dozen local businesses that generated about 30% of Nederland’s economic opportunity. The building itself is one of the largest in the area.
Schmidtmann says fighting the fire stretched his department’s already scarce resources.
“One of the apparatus that fought that fire was 26 years old,” he said. “And we fought with some of the challenges of the older equipment. Some things didn’t go quite right, but we were able to power through that.”
Multiple outside agencies pooled their resources to help prevent the fire from spreading to nearby homes and the forest. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation are spearheading the investigation to determine the cause.
“The ATF, I think, brought 20 people, CBI brought people, Department of Fire Prevention and Control brought people, the (Boulder County) sheriff’s office, Nederland fire. So they’re all involved in this process. If Nederland fire with a fire chief and one fire marshal, we’d be here forever,” Schmidtmann said.
Schmidtmann says the state and federal agencies are also better equipped to handle an investigation than Nederland Fire can.
“This is everybody’s livelihoods. So we want to make sure that we don’t mess up and that we’re not missing something,” he said.
Fire chief remains a physical presence at fire scene
Schmidtmann has largely remained on scene around the clock since the fire started.
“For a lot of these people, it’s not just things. This is their livelihood. This is what they’ve worked their entire lives to build and grow, and I want to be very sensitive to that because I understand,” he said.
In 2016, Schmidtmann was a volunteer firefighter for the Nederland Fire Protection District during the Cold Springs Fire. He was also a victim of the natural disaster.
“Yup. We lost our house. We lost our dog, Geno,” he said.
Schmidtmann says his past gives him a different perspective as he now helps his neighbors navigate their losses.
“I’ve been through this process myself. It is hard. It’s hard to say ‘no, you can’t come in.’ ‘No, we can’t tell you if the money in your safe is there,’” he said. “This is a life-changing event for a lot of people and so the hardest part is patience. We are working hard.”
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