When firefighters called for wireless service back up, Verizon Wireless' Significant Event Response Team (SERT) responded with additional cell phones and equipment that increased wireless coverage for emergency crews battling the Nash Ranch fire.

The company deployed a temporary mobile cell site called a COLT (Cell on Light Truck), and 50 wireless devices to the remote area near Guffey on June 28. A COLT is a self-contained mobile cell site designed specifically for rapid and short-term network response. It enhances wireless coverage so that customers and emergency personnel can make more calls, send more messages and download information.

Verizon Wireless deploys mobile cell sites -- or boosts the call-handling capacity of existing sites -- to enhance its network when there is a natural disaster or other unplanned event. In the past year, Verizon Wireless has deployed mobile cell sites and other equipment to more than a dozen wildfire incidents around the country. Additionally, the company has provided more than 750 wireless phones with service to aid public safety officials and others.

Verizon Wireless invested more than $102 million in its Colorado network in 2007. The company's ongoing network investment now totals more than $700 million in Colorado and $44 billion nationally over the past seven years.

Standard Verizon Wireless network-reliability features include battery back-up power at all facilities as well as generators installed at all switching facilities and many cell site locations.