FLORISSANT — A group of volunteers in Florissant works to help prevent wildfires, but the Jason Mikesell, Teller County Sheriff said what the group is doing is unsafe. If you spot purple vests, hard hats and chainsaws in hand, you have found the group known as NoFloCo Fire Mitigation Posse.
"We go out and help where we can when we can,” said Don Moore.
He first started fire mitigation on his own property. Then he and his wife co-founded NoFloCo Fire Mitigation Posse in 2020. They started with five volunteers and the mission to help prevent wildland fires.
“We have close to 700 members now that come out and participate and help neighbors... with fire mitigation,” said Moore.
On Friday, the group was helping Lionel at his home in Florissant.
“I got a big grin because these guys are here. I can tell you that,” said Lionel.
Lionel called NoFloCo to help cut down dead trees on his property. Moore said they are cutting the trees down because they were killed by pine beetles.
“Blue stain in the tree is a clear indication that this tree had a mountain pine beetle,” said Moore.
Pine beetles kill trees, drying them out, and making them the perfect fuel for a fire. So, Moore said the trees need to be cut down.
Lionel said he feels a lot safer with the trees cut down, but Mikesell is worried.
“What you're seeing them say is not the full truth,” said Mikesell.
He said private property owners who use this service are not getting the entire story.
“They're not a registered business in the State of Colorado. They don't have their own LLC. They're not a 501-c3,” said Mikesell.
The sheriff posted his concerns on Facebook saying he does not approve of the group's quote ‘dangerous activities.' He warns people the group does not carry insurance and has a history of unsafe fire mitigation practices.
"Without having insurance, without having a business. How do you go onto a landowner's property and you're doing mitigation, and you're telling the landowner, it's gonna be fine, nothing can happen to them, but somebody gets injured, who then is at fault for that? It's the landowner,” said Mikesell.
Moore said all the volunteers go through training and they have safety precautions protocols in place.
"So before we do anything, we actually take a step back and look at it and consider it and talk to others. But more importantly, we've gone to training, right? We've gotten significant chainsaw and tree felling training,” said Moore.
He said NoFloCo is transparent with property owners and lets them know they do not have insurance.
“We're just a volunteer organization. We have no insurance. If you invite us on your property, it's just like inviting any other friend or neighbor to help you paint your house or fix your car or that type of stuff,” said Moore.
The sheriff said the group needs to get insurance.
“They can go out and do all the mitigation they want to help people. That's fine,” said Mikesell. “Would it make me happier if they were able to get insurance to do this? Absolutely. We've told them multiple times over and over, go through those steps, get those, but they've refused, or they just haven't done it. So, how can you be an entity saying that you want to work with everybody and you want to do the right thing, yet you won't get insurance and you won't get a license to work in the state of Colorado? It makes no sense to me at all, nor any of the other fire chiefs in this county."
Moore said the group has filed for 501-c3 status to become a nonprofit organization, and he invites the sheriff to come out and see one of their projects.
Teller County Commissioner Dan Williams provided KOAA News5 with this statement;
“As the Chairman of the Board of Teller County Commissioners and the Chairman of the Teller County Wildfire Council we applaud our residents who are able to mitigate their own property to assist in keeping all of us safe. We also appreciate neighbors helping neighbors, something that has been done for over 125 years in our county. Our fire districts work in consort with our Fire Warden/County Sheriff Jason Mikesell in safe and standardized practices recognized by Colorados Division of Fire Prevention. The County even purchased an industrial chipper that is used throughout our county and when appropriate, fire permits for prescribed limited burning on private property are issued by the Sheriffs Department. These activities are either covered by the fire districts insurance policy or the private homeowner’s policy.
Teller County and its leadership take the life, health and safety of our residents as our number one priority and despite our best efforts have had numerous costly fires in the past few years requiring state and federal assets at the cost of millions of dollars. Over half of Teller County lies outside of a fire district and 56% of this county is federal land under another jurisdiction.
The Sheriff was clear in his letter, this issue is non-negotiable and the BoCC stands firmly with our Fire Warden on the letter just issued. At a time when private property owners in our county are losing fire insurance daily or cannot obtain fire insurance for new construction we cannot have an organization putting our county at risk with nonstandard practices or misleading information and our citizens now have the same information we have.”
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