National Coordination Center: "Not every fire is going to get everything"

Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft and massive air tankers were all weaving across the Colorado sky Thursday as wildfires have been sparking around the state.

"Sitting out here watching some of these slurry bombers dropping retardant, it was reassuring," Bruce West said.

West left his home near Deer Creek Canyon Road in Jefferson County, where the Quarry Fire has grown to over 400 acres.

The equipment he's seeing, he knows, is crucial to the fight but shifting all the time.

"Are you ever concerned about resources on your fire?" CBS Colorado reporter Karen Morfitt asked.

"Of course, but from what I've been seeing and hearing they are diverting what they need to," West said.

Some of those resources are being diverting to and from fires that are twice as big as the Quarry Fire.

The Stone Canyon Fire scorched more than 1,000 acres in one day and the Alexander Mountain Fire outside of Loveland on Thursday night grew to more than 8,000 acres.

This is as hundreds of local wildland firefighters are fighting fires outside of Colorado.

So who decides what resources go where?

"Here at NIC we control the movement of nationally shared resources that are in high demand and limited supply, so think air tankers, type 1 and type 2 helicopters, smoke jumpers, hotshot crews -- those types of resources," Sean Peterson said.

Peterson is the center manager for the National Interagency Coordination Center.

Right now, he says they are at their highest level of need.

"At national preparedness Level 5, not every fire is going to get everything they need," he added.

When a request for support comes in, they weigh the risks.

"For making a decision like an air tanker, it would be life and human safety would be the top priority; structures, of course, very high up there but even energy infrastructure, power lines that are supplying a large population are all things we look at," Peterson said.

The Quarry Fire, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, checks a lot of those boxes.

"This is not the biggest by any stretch, but the difficulty for firefighters fighting this fire and the density of homes and you look at the assets that can't afford to be lost," Jefferson County Sheriff's Office spokesman Mark Techmeyer said Thursday morning.

While the number of resources may change daily, the fight from the fire crews that remain is constant.

"They all have the same goal: Let's put out the fire, let's save lives and save structures," Techmeyer said.

"That's what's reassuring to me as a resident," West responded.

On Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency authorized the use of federal funds to help with firefighting costs of the Quarry Fire after determining that the fire threatened such destruction that it would constitute a major disaster.