Office of Emergency Management to Conduct Wildfire Evacuation Exercise

The La Plata County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) will conduct a weeklong multi-jurisdictional evacuation drill to prepare residents as well as responding agencies in the event of wildfire or other emergencies. The exercise will be held Monday, April 24 through Thursday, April 27th.

The objectives for this exercise include practicing inter-agency communications and coordination, increasing public awareness and education, evaluating the readiness of the La Plata County OEM Incident Management Team and Emergency Operations Center (EOC), testing our Alert and Warning systems, and developing a common operating procedure.

Several subdivisions will be involved and staff at the EOC will test the CodeRED alert system for registered residents. Exercise maps and evacuation sites will be posted to www.tinyurl.com/lpcoem. Residents are strongly encouraged to register for CodeRED through the county’s website at co.laplata.co.us under the “Emergency Management” tab.

County officials, the sheriff’s office and local fire chiefs will participate in various fire simulations, obtaining the values at risk, developing safe evacuation routes and conducting hypothetical home damage assessments.

The American Red Cross will practice setting up a shelter and conduct sheltering training on Tuesday and Wednesday during the exercise. Community members are invited and encouraged to participate in this free training.

La Plata County Search & Rescue personnel also will monitor the EOC’s Community Call Line at (970) 385-8700.