Chattin' with the Chief: Be Alert

Fires are on the forefront of people’s minds recently following a relatively small wildfire near Jack Creek and two calls for hay bales struck by lightning.

With the Hanna RR 316 Fire of 2020 still in people’s minds, some may be concerned about where they may evacuate to.

“We did have some people raise some concerns about where they would go if a fire made a big run, which can happen,” said Saratoga Police Chief Mike Morris. “The fire departments did an amazing job getting on this and knocking it down and staying on it, but we did have the fire in Hanna a few years ago. It could have been an absolute disaster, but they were able to keep it away from the town itself.”

According to Morris, his department has received questions about where people would muster in the event of an evacuation and what they would do. While he admits these are good questions to ask, he said the focus should be more on the disbursement of information.

“I think it is more important for the general public to not know exactly where those places are, but how to get the information about how to get where we want them to go,” said Morris. “Any natural disaster could be very fluid. It would almost be like saying to meet in one room. Well, if that’s the room that’s on fire it’s certainly not a meeting place. So we want to be able to get the information out about where to go.”

For Carbon County, Morris said the best source of information is the AlertSense program introduced by the Carbon County Office of Emergency Management and Lenny Layman.

“It’s really a good program, it’s a volunteer program. There’s a couple of different ways you can opt in,” said Morris. “You volunteer to put your information in to get signed up.”

Residents of Carbon County can either use the AlertSense app, which is available on both the iPhone App Store and the Android App Store, or opt in for text messages. Morris said the Saratoga Police Department would help anyone interested sign-up who was unsure how to do so. He added that the police department and the office of emergency management have already visited the Saratoga Senior Center a few times and helped local senior citizens sign up for the program.