The regional 911 authority may have answers as early as Thursday explaining why so many unaffected residents received evacuation alerts about Thursday’s Akerman fire. 

The fire near Summer Grace Street and Akerman Drive in Colorado Springs burned about 30 acres, damaged 20 homes, and triggered evacuation orders for 500 homes. During the first evacuation order for the fire, residents across the city received a cellphone alert about the orders, triggering numerous questions from the public. 

“We are well aware of the panic or concern that overshoot may have caused on Thursday. We are working to mitigate that now,” said Ben Bills, public information officer for the El Paso County-Teller County 911 Authority. The authority works to ensure all the 911 dispatch centers across both counties have the same equipment and training, he said. 

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Bills sent the problematic evacuation order Thursday through the wireless emergency alert system that pings cellphones based on their physical location using cellphone towers. However, instead of alerting people within a tenth of a mile around the evacuation area, far more people received the notification. The wireless emergency alert system is the same system that the National Weather Service relies on to alert people about severe weather, he said. 

Bills is working with the county’s vendor Everbridge and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine if the problem was caused by human error, software infrastructure or another source. Until then, the 911 centers in El Paso County are not going to use the wireless alert system, one of the best tools for alerting tourists to emergencies, like wildfire.

“We have it out of play right now while we try to troubleshoot it very quickly,” he said. 

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Local emergency officials have only used the wireless emergency alert system twice before the Akerman fire and did not see the same problems with alerting so many unintended people, he said. 

Wireless weather alerts and Amber alerts, which rely on the same system, are separate will continue to be used.

Residents can also receive emergency alerts directly if they register with Peak Alerts, and Bills encourages residents to sign up for the service. Everbridge provides the Peak Alert services and integrates with the wireless emergency alert system.

The city is likely to continue relying on both services, as it transitions to Zone Haven, a service meant to speed evacuations. The Colorado Springs Fire Department expects to split the community into about 200 evacuation zones, up from the existing 72, and expects evacuations will move faster if smaller areas can be evacuated at the same time. 

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