NEDERLAND — The Nederland Fire Protection District (NFPD) spent 2025 strengthening their operations through hosting and attending specialty training programs, rejuvenating their facilities and fleet of vehicles through maintenance and improvements, and pursuing and establishing interagency collaboration in forest mitigation efforts. 

Calls of Significance 

On January 15, 2025, the NFPD Board of Directors, NFPD Chief Charlie Schmidtmann, Timberline Fire Protection District’s (TFPD) Fire Chief Paul Ondr, and Edward LeBlanc from the United States Forest Service (USFS), began the new year by acknowledging Emmit Hoyl and Scott Porter for their help fighting the West Magnolia Fire.

The fire began as a routine slash pile burning that grew out of control at 8:45 a.m. on October 31, 2024. By 9:02 a.m. the NFPD, TFPD, USFS, Boulder County Emergency Services, and Boulder County Fire Management had been dispatched. 

Before firefighters arrived, neighbors Hoyl and Porter jumped to action, using Hoyl’s own personal brush truck to help tame the fire. 

“These actions prevented this incident from spreading and becoming a larger incident possibly damaging multiple properties, losing homes, and endangering lives,” Schmidtmann said.

Throughout 2025, the NFPD answered just over 415 calls of significance, starting with six responses to the Eldora ski area in January. Firefighters and medical personnel responded to several incidents at Eldora from January to April, including a head injury and an accident involving a three-year-old suffering facial trauma who required a helicopter transport. 

The NFPD responded to more than 15 vehicle accidents, including a car off Boulder Canyon Road, found in “The Narrows” in June almost 12 hours after it had crashed and was more than half-submerged in Middle Boulder Creek. The driver received only minor injuries.

Another car drove off of the highway and into Barker Reservoir on December 8. The driver of the car was transported to the hospital and again was found to have sustained only minor injuries.

The car was successfully removed from the reservoir on December 14, after an extensive collaborative mission with several other local agencies, including divers from Boulder Emergency Services. 

In addition to attending to individuals suffering from cardiac arrest, pepper spray burns, breathing difficulties, seizures, broken limbs, hypoglycemia, head injuries, axe wounds, stroke, drug abuse, knee and ankle injuries, and allergic reactions, the NFPD fought a total of three car fires, three wildland fires, and five structure fires, including the devastating Caribou Village Shopping Center fire on October 9.  

The District also responded to a total of 25 illegal campfires in 2025, including 14 that occurred in a three week period over the summer while the area was under Stage 1 Fire Restrictions. 

Training 

In 2025, District personnel attended Mass Casualty Incident training, live fire instructor courses, Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus training, Traffic Control and Trauma Scenario courses, Wildland competency reviews and backcountry emergency training, Mass Casualty Incident training, aerial operations training, engine operator classes, National Fire Academy’s driver pump classes, and CPR, EMS, and firefighter recertification courses. 

Personnel also organized and taught pediatric trauma training, drills on structure fires, reporting with First Due, Orthopedic Injuries training, driver training, pump operations, ambulance operations and competencies, cardiac arrests, radio updates, EMS scenarios, Narcan training, Command and Control, and vitals training. 

Chief Schmidtmann completed the fourth section of his Chief Officer Training Course, attended a 40-hour section of the Compost Operations Training Course, finished a 160-hour Chief Officer Training Class in Loveland on May 6, attended the Fire Leadership Challenge in Keystone and completed the Lead Program. 

NFPD Fire Marshal Andrew Joslin passed the International Code Council’s Fire Plans Examiner test and earned his Fire Inspector III certification. He also joined the Colorado Firefighting Officers Association, completed the Fire & Life Safety Educator I course and passed the state exam, and attended the International Association of Arson Investigators conference in Vail. 

Captain Nick Faes completed his Fire Instructor certification and, along with Captain Glen Wheelock, began working toward becoming certified as a Live Fire Instructor.

Wheelock completed the Colorado state requirements to earn his proctor certification, passed the state certification for Fire Instructor 2, began working on the National Emergency Response Information System, and secured testing of the District’s hoses, trucks, and ladders by the company Waterway for 2026.

Captain Conor Moran recertified the district’s EMS personnel, attended the Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) course in order to learn active shooter preparedness, trained the NFPD command staff on the new ambulance’s operations, distributed Narcan kits to frontline staff, and provided naloxone education to the community. He drafted the 2026 budgets for the EMS Division and the District’s upcoming EMT Program.

Moran continued to develop the EMT Program throughout 2025. The 12-week course begins on February 2, 2026, and will meet at 650 West 4th Street on Mondays and Wednesdays, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and all day Sundays, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Grace Gude, Matt Ono, Ryder Jones, Mike Techentin, Max Schmidtmann, and Adam Cotner all graduated from Boulder County Firefighters Association Fire Academy, as well as former NFPD Public Information Officer Eric Abramson, who went through academy for his Firefighter I recertification.

And, on July 4, 2025, the NFPD held a special promotion ceremony for Lieutenants Scott Papich, Bobby Swanson, and Mandi Papich.

New vehicles

At the beginning of the year, Chief Schmidtmann detailed to the NFPD Board how the support of the 2022 mill levy had helped to replace the District’s aging fleet of vehicles, as well as helping to bring improvements to their fire stations. The 2024 Annual Report noted that by 2026 the NFPD will have a new fire engine, a new ambulance, and will have replaced their 30-year-old brush truck chassis. 

Back in September of 2023, the NFPD Board of Directors voted to use the $108,837.15 Emergency Medical and Trauma Services grant awarded to the District for the purchase of a new Braun Liberty Type I Ambulance from Danko Emergency Equipment Company. 

In February of 2025, the concept-build drawings for the NFPD’s new ambulance were approved, which Schmidtmann reported as “marking tangible progress in the acquisition” of the vehicle.

In June, the Board received an update that after some issues were resolved the ambulance was delivered from Ohio to Dacono, Colorado, to get exterior graphics installed.

By August, Vehicle 5621, the NFPD’s brand new ambulance, had finally arrived, with Captain Conor Moran continuing to fully load the ambulance with the working equipment and medical emergency provisions required to be ready for deployment.

Also in August, a new brush truck, as well as Vehicle 5650, the NFPD’s new command vehicle, joined the fleet.

“It has a med kit, cardiac monitor, medications," Schmidtmann reported about the command vehicle. "If somebody is really deep in the back country we have the ability to slide the patient in the back.”

On October 26, 2025, community members and firefighters christened engine 5601, the NFPD’s new workhorse, in a special Push In Ceremony, during which the new vehicle was dedicated to NFPD Lieutenant Ken Kehoe, who passed away on August 13, 2025, after volunteering for Nederland Fire for 12 years.

Firefighters lined up and waited until instructed to hose down the new engine, after which the community struggled and pushed forward as a community, bringing the new engine home into the fire station’s bay.

The Board has also discussed the possibility of the District purchasing a new commercial wildland, single axle WUI Type 2 “Big Horn” engine from BME Fire Trucks LLC for $662,529, as a reliable backup engine.

Joint mitigation efforts 

Throughout 2025, the NFPD Board discussed and eventually voted on an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the Nederland and Timberline Fire Protection Districts to provide forest mitigation service to district residents.  

The IGA, drafted by the attorneys for each District, states that the TFPD’s established Mitigation/Wildfire Safety and Prevention Program will be made available to Nederland residents through the NFPD, in exchange for the NFPD providing Timberline with equipment and personnel as needed. 

While the TFPD remains solely responsible for operational authority and management of the mitigation project, the NFPD is authorized to provide, as well as purchase, equipment to be used by Timberline that will remain owned by Nederland.

“Residents within the NFPD jurisdictional boundaries that seek Mitigation Services shall contact NFPD, which will coordinate with TFPD to provide the services,” the IGA reads.

“TFPD shall require that any property owner requesting Mitigation Services releases and indemnifies both NFPD and TFPD from any loss, damage, or liability arising out of or related to the performance of the Mitigation Services.” 

The Board voted to approve the IGA in June.

The Tucker Project

Additionally, the NFPD has been working with the Boulder Watershed Collective (BWC) regarding their community engagement plan for a large mitigation effort coming in 2026, originally deemed the Tucker Project, now called the Middle Boulder Creek Fuel Reduction Partnership Project. 

The project, which entails forest mitigation on the Tucker property—located west of Nederland, between Eldora Road and Beaver Creek—is planned to begin early this year, with an engagement plan associated with the project’s rollout that is expected to include community input from residents and stakeholder organizations, including Nederland’s Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Board, the Board of Trustees, Wild Bear Nature Center (WBNC), and Magnolia Forest Group. 

Early in 2025, the Board heard from BWC about the rollout of the project’s engagement process, starting with a planned site visit with project developers, which happened on May 17. There was a project launch event on June 12, attended by roughly 35 community members and stakeholders at the Nederland Community Center, and a final community meeting was held on July 31.  

The engagement plan was expected to be finalized and released through The Mountain-Ear, Nedheads Facebook page, and the Town of Nederland’s website, along with a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document, curated from community input. Forest and fire ecology learning events through WBNC were also planned. 

The Eldora acquisition 

On July 16, 2025, the NFPD Board first discussed the implications of the Town of Nederland acquiring the Eldora Mountain Resort.

As Eldora is currently within the District, NFPD provides fire and medical services when needed. Schmidtmann explained to the Board his main concerns regarding the acquisition, which included the possible loss of tax revenue simultaneously with the potential increase in service needs.

“If that becomes a government entity, we’ll lose the revenue from it,” Schmidtmann said about the ski mountain. “We can lose around $105,000 a year in tax revenue.” 

Schmidtmann also touched upon the possibility of summer recreation on the mountain. Increased visitation could result in the need for more coverage, inadvertently reducing coverage to Nederland residents. 

Board members shared concerns about financial strain causing potential budget cuts for both the County and the City of Boulder that may impact future coverage of emergency services. 

Since the announcement of the potential acquisition was made, the City of Boulder has ended their 14-year relationship with American Medical Response (AMR), and instead will be contracting with Falck, who will provide ambulance services to the City for the next three years.

AMR is expected to close their facility at 3800 Pearl Street and lay off up to 87 people by the end of the year. However, AMR is still expected to provide ambulance services to Boulder County, as well as to unincorporated areas, for two more years, until December 31, 2027.

The loss of the Boulder facility, however, will cause AMR to have to respond from as far as Arvada. 

“I am concerned that, especially on busy Eldora days, … we’re going to be in trouble,” Schmidtmann said. “It will be a challenge, and there’s a lot going on. We’re at the mercy of what AMR can do, or will do.”

Schmidtmann added that there are many factors to consider about Nederland’s future ambulance coverage. There is the possibility of AMR pulling out of their remaining contract, as well as the potential of Hygiene and Lyons Fire organizations collaborating to provide ambulance services. 

 The Nederland Fire Protection District Board of Directors meets on the third Wednesday of every month. Meetings can be attended online via Microsoft Teams. Their first meeting of the new year will be on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at 7 p.m. 

For more information go to: nfpd.org

To view the Middle Boulder Creek Mitigation Program FAQ, go to: assets.bouldercounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/mbc-faq.pdf.