Someone apparently looked at a U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighting truck in western Colorado and decided it was their ride.
By the time law enforcement caught up with the truck Friday, Sept. 4, it had traveled from the Montrose area to Durango, according to the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.
Durango Police officers found the truck and tried to stop it. The driver allegedly kept going despite the officers’ emergency lights and sirens.
Police ended their pursuit as the truck left the city and entered county jurisdiction. La Plata County deputies later found it again and picked up the chase.
Wrong Turn
At one point, the wildland truck briefly left the roadway before getting back onto it, the sheriff’s office said.
The pursuit eventually took care of itself.
The driver entered a dead-end road, stopped the truck, and surrendered. Deputies took the man into custody without further incident.
The sheriff’s office did not identify him in its initial account or specify what charges he could face.
There was also one more jurisdictional handoff.
The sheriff’s office said the man is an enrolled member of a federally recognized Native American tribe and the incident ended on Southern Ute Indian Reservation lands. Southern Ute Police responded and assumed responsibility for the investigation.
Colorado State Patrol also assisted during the incident.
About The Truck
The sheriff’s office described the vehicle as a U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighting truck that had been reported stolen out of Montrose.
Exactly how the truck was taken, when it disappeared, and what it had been doing before the theft were not detailed in the sheriff’s initial public account.
Those unanswered questions did not stop readers from getting hung up on the most obvious part of the story.
One commenter wrote, “why any one would steal a fire fighter truck is just crazy!”
As of Friday evening, the sheriff’s office had not publicly identified the driver or announced a charging decision in its post. Southern Ute Police had taken over the investigation after his arrest.