CONIFER, Colo. (AP) — Authorities said Friday they are investigating how well an emergency telephone notification system worked during a deadly Colorado wildfire because some residents who signed up never got a warning.
About 12 percent of the people authorities intended to notify failed to get a warning Monday about the wildfire in the mountains southwest of Denver. Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman Mark Techmeyer said some of those people likely hung up after hearing the pause that precedes the automated message, or their phone lines may have been busy.
He said that is bound to happen in any emergency, but authorities were most concerned there wasn't any attempt to reach an unknown number of other people registered to get the telephone alerts.
"We want to get to the bottom of this as much as our citizens do," Techmeyer said.
The company that handles the system, Baton Rouge, La.-based FirstCall Network Inc., has said the system worked exactly as it should have.
"I know that everyone who opted in got the call," FirstCall President Mark Teague said Friday. "We're working closely with (county officials) trying to get them all the information they need."
Teague said the county can determine which phones, if any, weren't called by comparing phone numbers in the system with mapping and telephone data. He said the database is updated frequently, but he didn't immediately know how often.
FirstCall's system is set up to call three times at three-minute intervals if a phone line is busy, Teague said. Local agencies can change that if they wish. Local agencies can also decide what message appears on a recipient's telephone if it has caller ID.
It wasn't immediately clear how Jefferson County's system was set up.
FirstCall provides the service to 150 to 200 agencies nationwide, Teague said.
Monday's calls went out in two waves, and the first wave included a number of people outside the evacuation area and some outside Colorado, Techmeyer said. He didn't know the locations of the out-of-area phones that got calls, or the times of the two waves.
Sheriff's officials said they were trying to get more data from FirstCall but said that may take a while. They voiced frustration with the company.
Sheriff's officials said a couple found dead in the fire zone got a call, as did a woman who remains missing, but it wasn't immediately clear when the calls came. A team has searched 219 acres for Ann Appel and planned to scour another 80 acres Friday.
About 500 firefighters were working Friday to contain more of the 6-square-mile wildfire, which was apparently sparked by a state controlled burn that sprang to life because of strong winds. It has damaged or destroyed at least 25 homes.
Crews have cleared lines around 45 percent of the fire's 8.5-mile perimeter to help contain the flames.
Wind gusts of over 25 mph were expected to return Saturday night, but that's not as bad as originally predicted.
"It's going to be squirrely work. The good news is that's tomorrow," Techmeyer said.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has ordered a suspension on prescribed burns on state land and pledged a thorough review of the rules for such fires.
Residents of about 180 homes remain evacuated. At the height of the fire threat, residents of about 900 homes were told to flee.
With so many people out of their homes most of the week, mail that couldn't be delivered has piled up in one post office. But there are signs of life returning to normal, with power restored to some areas and the closure of an overnight shelter.
Friends and family of the couple who died, Sam Lamar Lucas, 77, and Linda M. Lucas, 76, planned a memorial service Friday at their church.