For months, the Denver Fire Department’s 150-member wildland team — one of the largest in the country — has been fighting the flames that continue to ravage Colorado and other parts of the U.S. late into fall.  

Climate change has played a key role in increasing the frequency and magnitude of wildfires, particularly in the Western United States. In Colorado, three of the top four largest wildfires in state history have all ignited this year. 

“There is no fire season anymore; it’s a perpetual fire season,” DFD spokesman Capt. Greg Pixley said in a phone interview Friday morning. “The demand has been so high.” 

Denver wildland firefighters are currently deployed in Colorado, California, Tennessee and Wyoming, Pixley said.

Late Thursday night, 22 Denver firefighters had to be moved from Colorado’s Cameron Peak Fire to the East Troublesome Fire, which has shot up in size to 170,163 acres and is only 5% contained. 

“It’s a very fluid, very flexible environment that we work in,” Pixley said, and that’s a clear indication.” 

As of Friday morning, 10 Denver firefighters are now assisting with the Cameron Peak Fire, which is currently 206,977 acres and 57% contained. Twenty-two DFD firefighters are assigned to the East Troublesome Fire. Eight more are in Boulder battling the CalWood Fire, which has hit more than 10,000 acres and is 55% controlled, and one member was sent to the Williams Fork Fire in Grand County, which has burned 14,670 acres and is 30% contained. Another four are stationed at the Jeffco Airtanker Base in Broomfield to help fill jets with fire retardant to curtail the flames across multiple counties. 

Outside of Colorado, nine members have been deployed to California to help fight the August Complex Fire, the first in California history to hit more than 1 million acres, which has killed at least 31 people and left thousands of homes destroyed. Five more were sent to Wyoming: four to the Mullen Fire, one to the Middle Fork Fire. Another firefighter was deployed to a dispatch center in Tennessee. 

“As you can see, we’ve gone from east to west,” Pixley said.

Keeping track of Denver’s wildland firefighters is a herculean task but done seamlessly, Pixley said, by one man: Jim Krugman, DFD’s wildland operations coordinator, who used to work for the city’s Office of Emergency Management.

Firefighters are often transferred from one fire and state to another, and, not unlike employees in other industries, sometimes switch shifts, take time off, fall sick and more.

Still, Krugman “knows who is where, he manages our team, the requests for firefighters, their transfers, the team certifications … It’s a complex job. It’s constant phone calls, exchanging of information, e-mails, texts, I’m sure, with some of our firefighters who forget where they’re supposed to be,” he said with a laugh.

Although DFD’s wildland team runs like a well-oiled machine, this year is still unprecedented, and therefore presents immense challenges. 

“The number of fires that we have in Colorado is not only unique to the wildland team in the Denver Fire Department, but also to Colorado,” he explained. “We haven’t had these many fires of such significance at one specific time, probably in this history of Colorado, at least in recent history.” 

Nevertheless, Pixley said, the Denver wildland team’s experience across the country makes them well-trained for the moment. 

“The fact that we have had those experiences prior to make it easier for us to be able to deploy our resources and to provide assistance throughout the state of Colorado and the United States,” he said. 

With rain and snow expected for areas in the west and east sides of Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire on Saturday night, firefighters may be at an advantage, Pixley predicted.

“The firefighters assigned to those fires could have a leg up on being able to control that fire and to get all the way around it,” he said. “This is a godsend.” 

Courtesy of the Denver Fire Department A Denver Fire Department wildland engine assists with the Cameron Peak fire in Larimer County on Oct. 17.

Courtesy of the Denver Fire Department