COUNTY News:
We are aware of individuals who are organizing various food and water drives for firefighters working at the Cajete fire in the Jemez Mountains. The number of phone calls and offers to assist them, as well as your response to help Los Alamos County with the evacuated animals we are receiving at the local shelter has been truly overwhelming both yesterday and today.
With the Cerro Grande and the Las Conchas fires in our history, we understand the trauma and impact that a wildfire can have on families, friends and neighbors. We all want to help.
However, we must ask for your support in allowing us to coordinate resources – and that includes things like food and water. The only individuals being allowed past the road block to deliver items are public safety staff.
Private donations have to follow the same process as donations the County is coordinating; they must be managed and maintained (logged etc). If you arrive at the back gate with truckloads of food and water – it is the public safety officials who are left to coordinate items they didn’t ask for.
Everything has to be signed in and signed out, donations must be inventoried, etc. This is a huge undertaking for Fire Emergency Resource Managers to handle for the items that they have requested formally from the County.
Private individuals carrying food and water that were not requested to be transported onto the fire scene simply drains their resources even more and takes more time, and it can end up in unwanted items that must later be disposed – especially with food spoilage – which causes more work for fire crews.
Los Alamos County has an emergency management commander who is in constant contact with the USFS and Sandoval County’s Emergency Management Team on the scene. The commander must be advised of all of these donations in order to maintain situational awareness of all the County’s resources that are being deployed/offered, and to be able to give accurate updates to teams on the scene at the Cajete Fire.
This morning, we did issue a call for residents who can help with the displaced animals to contact Dispatch at 662.8222 with a name and phone number and what can be offered. That request is the ONLY request we have received from Sandoval County and we are doing everything we can to support them. Sandoval County has not asked the County to provide other items such as food, water, blankets or other items.
Please help us – and Sandoval County’s response team – by refraining from organizing these kinds of drives. While we know that you mean well, we need to focus on managing resources in the most effective manner possible through intergovernmental contacts that are designed to respond in emergency situations such as this. Thank you.
