Mountain Festival to celebrate department’s golden milestone
Life before telephones meant people in the Rist Canyon-Stove Prairie area had to run to the nearest neighbor to call for help during wildfires. Later, a landline phone tree was organized to more quickly reach a greater number of people. Even this had inadequate capabilities because service availability limited the number of households with phones. Neighbors next began organizing to respond in emergency situations. Caches of firefighting tools were stored throughout the community, and fire wardens organized area residents to fight wildfires.
By 1975, the Rist Canyon-Stove Prairie region had reached a critical juncture. A greater number of forest fires were annually occurring in the area (eight per year), more than in any other Larimer County region. Added to this was the fact that the fire potential was worsening because of the increasing population, residents, and visitors, and growing severity of pine bark-beetle infestations killing a significant percentage of trees, causing additional fire hazards.
Some 75 residents and landowners responded to an invitation from Ted Bania (an area resident and retired state forester) and Mark Horvat (state district forester) to form a volunteer fire department in April of 1975. If they established a department, the Colorado State Forest Service would provide an indefinite loan of a 1947 Army surplus 2½ ton, 1,000-gallon 6×6 pumper truck. By the conclusion of the meeting, those present were overwhelmingly in favor of forming the volunteer fire department…