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DENVER (KDVR) — While wildfires can be a common occurrence in more rural and spacious counties, Colorado’s largest city is constantly working to be ready in the event a large-scale wildfire crosses into city limits.

Denver’s Office of Emergency Management is tasked with creating a strategy across city departments to respond to such emergencies.

“When it expands to something larger than one agency can handle, we’re then gonna get involved,” Mikayla Ortega with Denver OEM said. “We lead and guide the strategy for the overall response and emergency.”

Ortega said the Marshall Fire was an eye-opener for Denver emergency management. The fire quickly spread to become the most destructive in state history.

If a fire of that magnitude spread from grassier areas outside of Denver into city limits, Ortega said the state would likely get involved, but OEM regularly builds relationships with agencies in neighboring counties to prepare for these situations.

One criticism of the Marshall Fire response was the delayed notification system letting residents know they needed to evacuate.

Denver has several ways to notify residents, including wireless emergency alerts that pop up on your phone like an Amber Alert, and reverse emergency notifications.

“The reason why we have multiple alerting systems is we’re aware that sometimes an alert for whatever reason might not reach a phone,” Ortega said. “We want to make sure we get the message to you to get out if there’s an emergency near you.”

The wireless alerts are tested every year in May to make sure the system works. Denver OEM is able to pinpoint specific areas within the metro using cell towers and sends alerts to every phone in that drawn space.

“Communication can have a great impact on the overall outcome,” Ortega said. “We want to ensure that that’s a priority.”

Denver offers various training programs and classes to help residents prepare for emergencies from wildfires to floods. They offer these classes in English, Spanish and offer American Sign Language options for deaf and hard of hearing communities.