Now, she’s helping Durango, population 19,000, and others in the county to prepare for the inevitable approach of wildfire. During the week of April 20, more than 40 neighborhoods will participate in mock evacuations, responding to an alert as if cataclysmic fire were the real thing. Under Legarza’s leadership, it’s become an annual community event that people look forward to, a time when residents can make sure they’re ready if—and when—the real thing happens.

Many locals can tell you that Legarza knows her stuff. She spent 20 years as one of the elite firefighters know as Hotshots, muscling a 45-pound pack deep into wilderness, digging fire lines and sleeping in the dirt.

Legarza finished her career with the Forest Service overseeing broad swaths of the nation’s firefighting apparatus. But before Legarza could become a Hotshot, she had to break into a man’s world.

“It was 1990 and I had this scrap of paper with two job openings,” she recalled, “so I called the first Hotshot superintendent who said flat out: “We don’t hire women.” Legarza, who would go on to start the San Juan Hotshots crew 12 years later, didn’t give up.

“I called the next guy on my list and said, “’Hey, my name is Shawna Legarza and I want to be a Hotshot.” This time she got the job. “I was super fit and I knew it was my job for life.” 

Still athletic at 55, she ran 13 ultramarathons last year. A co-worker, Emily Spencer, the county’s planning section chief, calls LeGarza “tough as nails.”

By 2013, Legarza had moved up fast in the Forest Service and was overseeing all federal firefighting in California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. “I was year-round firefighting,” she said. What it taught her was that if you’ve planned and you’re ready to act beforea wildfire erupts, you can help save people’s lives and their homes.

The consequences of not being prepared were the most heartbreaking part of firefighting, she said. “Throughout my career I had to dwell on the bad fires, the ones where people panicked. I’ve watched structures built in the trees become torches. I’ve felt the chaos when there were no appropriate roads to escape on or to bring in help.”

One local wildfire she helped fight was the 2002 Missionary Ridge fire, which burned 76,000 acres near Durango. Buildings were destroyed and mountain ranges once considered fire breaks turned into wildfire bridges.

Invited to give a talk to the Durango Rotary Club a few years ago about her career, she said the first question from the audience was: “‘You’ve had a million jobs! Are you 90 years old?’”

“I’ve worn a lot of hats,” she admitted. As a rural kid growing up in Nevada, she started out as a ranch hand building fence and collecting manure. A slaughterhouse job earned her $1.50 a day.

Now, as spring begins with a climate growing drier and warmer, it’s no secret that forests are primed for wildfire. To get residents prepared if wildfires ignite at the edges of Durango, Legarza for the last three years has sponsored a widely popular “evacuation scenario.” There’s even a waiting list to participate.

Legarza said emergency management is about imagining the future. “Ask yourself, are you prepared? Here’s a start: remove fire fuels around your property, check your insurance, pack your go-kits, know how to evacuate.”

Specifically, that means scanning your important documents and storing them in the cloud, or for Luddites, storing them in a bag next to your door. “You could have only five minutes. Learn the safe routes out of your neighborhood and where to go when you are evacuated.”

In two weeks, Legarza’s event in La Plata County kicks off at the county fairgrounds April 22, with a wildfire preparedness workshop that includes booths offering resources for the public. It ends with an evacuation drill after make-believe fire alerts are broadcast on the county’s emergency system. Residents involved will get an IPAWS alert, much like an Amber alert. Then it’s time for people to move quickly, gathering belongings, children and pets and going to a designated evacuation center.

“We’re not going to live forever,” said Legarza, “and every day becomes more precious than the day before. Let’s all be ready for the worst.”

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

The second to last paragraph has been changed to reflect IPAWS as the correct acronym, we had IPAUSE.

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Westside’s fate was hardly a given. The New York-based owner, Neal Kurzner, rejected their first offer, saying he had a corporate buyer who owned many trailer parks and was ready to pay $5.5 million in cash. He gave the community just seven days to come up with a cash offer.    

“We knew what was at risk,” resident Darcy Diaz, told me. “But how do you raise $5.5 million?”  

Diaz, who grew up in Colombia and moved to Westside in 2018, knew their only hope was to organize. With a group of other determined residents, Diaz helped start the Westside Mobile Home Park Cooperative.  

It launched a GoFundMe account, opened a Facebook page, and prepared tamales, posole, and empanadas to fundraise for the cause. Then Local First, which supports development initiatives in La Plata County, granted Westside $140,000 in cash plus a $395,000 zero-interest loan, while the Durango community turned out in force, helping Westside raise just over $50,000 in less than a week.   

In the meantime, Stefka Fanchi, who heads up Elevation Community Land Trust, shored up support from county officials, banks and a handful of non-profits. Westside Co-op’s relationship with Elevation, which advocates for housing solutions for working-class people, provided the collateral needed to support the project.  

The result: In just five days, Elevation and Westside pieced together $5.56 million in cash plus closing fees. On March 25, they submitted their offer.  

For nearly a week, the community waited to hear back, with many residents saying they could hardly sleep.    

Then, on March 31, Fanchi said she had news. Diaz and her fellow organizers gathered around a single computer in a neighbor’s kitchen.  “It’s been a really tough week,” Fanchi began over Zoom. “And I do have an update, and that is that we are buying the Westside Mobile Home Park!”    

“They accepted!” residents screamed, crying and turning to each other in joy. Diaz hugged her 2-year-old daughter, and on the screen, Fanchi and her colleagues wept.     

Westside’s success provides hope in a housing market where mobile home parks are frequently sold on short notice followed by large rent hikes or eviction.  

But Westside’s success is an exception. Since 2020, when Colorado began requiring mobile home park owners to provide their residents with notice of their intent to sell, dozens of trailer parks have been placed on the market and only four have successfully bought the land beneath them.  

Now, Colorado needs to pass additional legislation that would grant first right of refusal to park residents, give them more time to submit an offer, and cap the percentage that parks can raise rent. A bill to do just that has been introduced by State Democratic Rep. Andrew Boesenecker.  

Westside Mobile Home Park residents needed a miracle, and they got it. But access to dignified housing shouldn’t come down to miracles. It should simply be the way things are.   

Benjamin Waddell is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a sociologist based at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

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