Jefferson County is using tax money to fight (and prevent) wildfires with 37 new hires

Jefferson County is using tax money to fight (and prevent) wildfires with 37 new hires

Leanna Jepkes was on her way home on a late summer night last year when she spotted flames on the hillside near where she lives with her husband and two children in the Jefferson County foothills. It was the start of the Quarry fire, a blaze that over the next week would grow to nearly 600 acres. It prompted the evacuation of more than 500 homes in Deer Creek Canyon. Jepkes and her family received their evacuation notice at 2 a.m. — a mere four …