Colorado Springs Fire Department joins trust for firefighter healthcare

On Tuesday, April 23 Colorado Springs City Council voted unanimously to allow the Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD) to join the Colorado Firefighter Heart, Cancer, and Behavioral Health Benefits Trust. The trust was created to aid Colorado firefighters and agencies in managing the human and financial burdens created by serious health issues. The trust mandates cardiac and voluntary cancer benefits to state firefighters. Recently the trust expanded to include behavioral health support. “We are incredibly grateful to our city councilmembers for voting to support the health and wellbeing of our more than 500 firefighters and their families in the event they have to face medical burdens from heart, cancer, or behavioral health,” said Fire Chief Randy Royal.
KXRM-TV FOX 21 Colorado Springs

‘What’s old is new again’: Colorado Springs firefighters expect to save more lives with new UCHealth partnership

VIDEO: In a new partnership allowing firefighters to perform whole blood transfusions in the field, Colorado Springs firefighters predict they will be able to save more lives while out on calls. The partnership is with UCHealth. It gives firefighters the equipment they need to be able to give whole blood to patients suffering from blood loss while in the field. “This is the bridge between those patients dying in the field and living and making it through emergency surgery,” Fire Chief Randy Royal said. Whole blood is a vital fluid that can be given in emergency situations to help those experiencing blood loss make it to the hospital to get more extensive emergency treatment. “What we also recognize from new research is that you have to give it in the first 15 minutes to 30 minutes of injury,” said Dr. David Steinbruner, a doctor at UCHealth with experience in emergency medicine.
KKTV CBS 11 Colorado Springs

State agencies use helicopters to train for wildfire prevention

Multiple state agencies took to the sky Sunday morning to learn how to fight wildfires from up above. Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control teams up with the Colorado National Guard and a couple of local fire departments every year to make this training happen. Brendan Young, an instructor pilot with the Colorado National Guard, still remembers the first time he saw a wildfire from a helicopter. “It’s really intimidating,” Young said. An intimidating sight they fortunately didn’t see on Sunday. Instead, the Boulder Fire Rescue Department put together a convincing simulation. “Everything is as real as can be, except actual fire on the ground,” said Erin Doyle, wildfire operations specialist for Boulder Fire. The goal is for crews to be prepared for the real thing when the time comes. Doyle calls training like this increasingly necessary.
KDVR-TV FOX 31 Denver

Firefighting archaeologists are protecting Colorado’s historical sites from wildfires

On an afternoon last summer, Brian Flynn sat on his back porch after work. As he drank a beer, he noticed a column of smoke rise above Grand Mesa. Despite all of the intel gathered during his workday that the Spring Creek fire was extinguished, the plume suggested his mission had changed. The next day, the wind pushed the fire toward a part of the plateau south of Parachute, where he knew Ute artifacts were scattered. Flynn and his team rushed to defend them, thinning the forest surrounding a wickiup, a dwelling made of sticks and brush, to provide a fire break. In the end, the wickiup was saved but the team could not make it to another Ute campsite in time. The fire burned through the site, exposing stone tools and a hearth to erosion.
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