Cloudcroft is located in South Central New Mexico, high in the Sacramento Mountains, at the Southern Tip of the Rocky Mountain Chain. Our elevation is approx. 9000 ft and we are surrounded by the Lincoln National Forest. Our forest is primarily mixed conifer with tall pine, fir, oak and aspen trees dominating. Our community and the surrounding areas are made up of small businesses which support our tourist oriented economy.

Other business influences relate to the Timber Industry, Military and Retirees who have found homes here. Our community has only 900 full time residents but swells to over 5000 during the summer and on holiday weekends. We are truly a 4 season community with golf, fishing, hunting, hiking, biking, ATV and Jeep trails in the summer months and skiing, snowmobiling and snow tubing in the winter months.

In addition to a tourist destination, Cloudcroft also serves as the "hub" for our entire Mountain Community. Some of our key assets are the U.S.F.S.-Lincoln National Forest-District Ranger Station, Otero County Electrical Cooperative-Main Office, Cloudcroft Public School District-Schools K thru 12, The Historic Lodge Resort, the Cloudcroft and Sacramento Mountains Museum, the Cloudcroft Ski Area, Dale Resler Boy Scout Camp, 2 banks, 8 church's, 2 day care's, 2 fuel stations, 8 restaurants, and numerous recreational facilities including 7 camp grounds, 2 snow tubing areas and 2 snowmobile tour facilities. Some of our more industrial type businesses are related to our timber Industry, a rock crushing plant and a cement mixing plant. Access to and through our community comes by way of (2) NM State Highway's and (1) U.S. Hwy, all three of which are known for their vistas and scenery attracting seasonally heavy passenger car, RV and motorcycle traffic.

Although the official organization of the Cloudcroft Volunteer Fire Department did not occur until 1946 when the Village of Cloudcroft incorporated, the origins of the Fire Department date back to the late 1800's when the settlement of Cloudcroft began. Proof of this exists in the form of photos of "The burning of the Lodge" in the early 1900's and original hose carts and fire apparatus on display at the Cloudcroft Museum.
As you might imagine, the members of the Cloudcroft Volunteer Fire Department must have a wide range of skills and experience to handle the wide variety of emergencies which can occur within our district. The Cloudcroft Volunteer Fire Department is a very proactive department. We have a 100% volunteer staff, but most have said, "You would never know that by looking". On virtually any day, you will find at least 1 Firefighter/ EMT at either of our 2 Fire Stations from sun up until sun down. Most of our volunteers live and work in the community and will respond within minutes at any time of the day. Our business community is extremely supportive of this, in that they will allow employees to leave for hours at a time, during work hours, to perform our life saving skills.

Although we have many skill sets to learn and stay sharp on, we primarily focus our efforts in three areas: Our comprehensive ISO rating which affects home and business insurances rates, wildfire risk due to our Wildland Urban Interface setting and overall fire prevention.

We are currently rated as an ISO Class 4 which ranks us in the top 10% of all rated Fire Departments (paid and volunteer) in the United States (48,960 of them) and the top 4% of all NM Departments (369 of them). We are 1 of only 2 departments in Otero County (out of 22) which have achieved Class 4 or better ratings for our community.

Our plans and preparations which address our exposure to wildfire include an annual Wildland Firefighter Academy in which we graduate an average of 140 students from all over the Southwest in a variety of classes and the organization of our unique, mobile Emergency Operations Center and Evacuation Shelter serving the entire Eastern half of Otero County for which we have developed our Emergency Operations Plan. Our unique concept for a mobile and quickly deployable EOC and Shelter has been used as a "Model EOC" by the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security.

Fire Prevention has sometimes been said to be the enemy of the "professional firefighter" due to the implied "perfect world" ramifications. If we do a superb job of preventing fires, what will become of the firefighter's careers? Will we eventually work ourselves out of a job? In Cloudcroft, we embrace this opportunity with open arms. We annually hold a "Fire Safety and Awareness Day" in the park for all of the Sacramento Mountain community to attend. Every other year we host the Otero County Fire Firefighters Association Fire Prevention Week main event which includes firefighter demonstrations of all kinds, interactive games and learning activities for children. All of this is in addition to the annual efforts put forth at the Cloudcroft School System during Fire Prevention Week. During this week we have activities and contests for grades K through 6 which range from coloring fire related pictures to written essays. These are graded and rewarded for accuracy and comprehensiveness. We also bring multiple apparatus and tools to the school and allow the children to observe, ask questions and interact with firefighters in full firefighting gear (including breathing apparatus). This effort often leads children to investigate our Junior Firefighter Program which can begin as early as age 14.

All of this is made possible by an extremely dedicated and talented group of folks. We currently have a roster of 28. Of those 28, some have specialized training in Structural Firefighting while others have chosen to specialize in Wildland Firefighting. We have many subset categories such as Vehicle Extrication, EMS, Hazardous Materials, Emergency Operations, High and Low Angle Rescue (including ski lift evacuations) and Confined Space Rescue. Others contribute by keeping our EOP updated annually, our NFIRS records accurate and up to date along with the day to day paperwork involved in running any business such as business meeting minutes, training records and retirement accounts. Two of our firefighters have degrees in Fire Science while others have hundreds of hours of ongoing education. Our firefighters bring as much as 30 years of individual experience to us from other departments (both paid and volunteer) while yet others bring fresh ideas from their experiences in commercial, industrial and military applications. All of this comes together for a great learning experience at the newly opened Cloudcroft Fire Training Center which offers the opportunity to train locally in all of the fields listed above and more.