WHEATLAND – After settling into his position as the county’s emergency management coordinator, Tony Krotz is taking over the helm as the county’s fire warden. Confirmed at last …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
Attention subscribers
To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, below, or purchase a new subscription.
Please log in to continue
Need an account?
Print and web subscribers
If you're a print and web subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
New fire warden
settles into position
A total of 11,000 acres were burned in Platte County fires last year. This year, there will be a new fire warden, and two deputy fire wardens to coordinate responses.
WHEATLAND – After settling into his position as the county’s emergency management coordinator, Tony Krotz is taking over the helm as the county’s fire warden.
Confirmed at last week’s county commissioner’s meeting, Krotz will be the new fire warden and the first in a newly structured system to oversee fire responses in the county.
Outgoing fire warden Aaron Clark has communicated to commissioners the fire warden position has become a full-time job over the last few years, with an increasing amount of time necessary to do the administration and paperwork aspect of the job. During Clark’s tenure, the fire warden position was appointed and overseen by county commissioners. The fire warden was in charge of the Platte County Firefighters organization and its finances. In the transition between Clark and Krotz as fire warden, the Platte County Firefighters entity was dissolved, and finances transferred to the county, enabling payments to firefighters to flow through the county’s books.
The position is now a full-time position, and two assistant fire wardens – Kenny Small and Mark Walker – were appointed as deputy fire wardens. Krotz explained he will handle the administrative and paperwork aspect of the job while assisting as incident commander on-scene as needed. The assistant fire wardens will take the lead on-scene to coordinate and assist the responding fire chiefs with logistics and strategies in their fire-fighting efforts.
“I think it will work out well,” Krotz said, adding over the past few years Clark has done a good job of bringing a cohesion between the multiple fire departments both in the county and surrounding agencies. He plans to build on that foundation and has been busy contacting the various fire chiefs at the local, state, and federal level to establish a solid line of communication and coordination. “I do not want to lose the progress Aaron has gained.”
Krotz will be leading the county into a new era of firefighting, which had a trial by fire (pun intended) this past year, in which air support will be a priority in assisting in initial fire responses to potentially serious fires. Clark said in the middle of the fire season, he was not hesitating to call in air resources on fires and credits the hardworking on-the-ground firefighters and air support combination as the reason more acres were not burned in the county this past year.
Of the 938,000 acres burned in Wyoming in 2024. In Platte County, there was an official total of 53 fires which burned just 11,000 acres. Both Krotz and Clark agree the year could have turned out a lot worse, and the increased utilization of air resources needs to become a standard for fire response. To make that happen, the new fire warden is seeking various funding sources to supplement the county’s firefighting and equipment budget, as well as meeting the needs for fire mitigation and recovery assistance for land in danger or impacted by wildfires. Krotz said he hopes to have things lined up and working “like a well-oiled machine” before the 2025 fire season, to allow room for the inevitable challenges which will be presented during each response.
As emergency management coordinator, Krotz is working at fine-tuning methods of communication with the public and emergency response agencies. One important aspect of that communication is the Platte Alert emergency alert system. Krotz encourages everyone to sign up to receive important messages and alerts during emergency situations. To sign up, either call his office at 307-322-1356 or go to www.plattecountywyoming.com/plattealert .