Preparing for wildfire

from homeowners’ insurance concerns to what local re departments are doing to help homeowners with mitigation to issues on public lands. e forum topic was even more important because of the Hogback Fire that started March 31 near Morrison. While it only burned 44 acres, it was a reminder that wild re danger is always close to home.

Insurance concerns

Carole Walker with Rocky Mountain Insurance Information told attendees that if they lose their homeowners insurance over that company’s wild re risk concerns, they need to shop to nd new insurance carriers.

“Insurance companies don’t like uncertainty in terms of catastrophe risk and paying claims,” she said, especially since the foothills are at the top of the list in the country for the threat of catastrophic wild re. She said Colorado was looking at creating a last-resort insurance option, so homeowners can get insurance to keep their mortgages. A bill has just been introduced to the Colorado legislature, and she said state o cials want to make sure they create an e ective program.

Fire department o erings

Evergreen Fire/Rescue along with Inter-Canyon and Elk Creek re departments o er free defensible space inspections and more in-depth wild re-prepared assessments for a fee. All three depart- ments have chipping programs, plus Je erson County o ers a slash-collection program.

Moore suggested that neighbors should tap into their volunteer community ambassadors. Community ambassadors serve plan units that were identi ed in the three departments’ Community Wild re Protection Plans. From the CWPPs come the Community Wild re Protection Implementation Plans or CWPIPs.

“Every plan unit has unique demographics and issues,” Moore said. “Everyone needs to work with their ambassadors to get the work done. e ambassadors also are a means for us to motivate the communities. We are in this together. We have to get our neighbors involved.”

Moore likened preparing for wildres to hurricanes.

“ ere is science behind changing re behavior as it moves into neighborhoods,” Moore said. “It’s like we can’t change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane, but we can build our homes to mitigate the damage.”

County issues

Tom Hoby, director of Je erson County Open Space, said Je co Open Space is not clearcutting vast areas of public lands and not cutting what is considered old growth: trees that are 200 years old or older.

“Some forests such as in Elk Meadow have 200 or more trees per acre,” Hoby said. “Ideally, we’d like to see in 40 to 50 per acre, and that is a dramatic di erence. In areas close to (buildings), we are down to the 20-trees-per-acre level. When we remove those trees, it allows vegetation to come up in areas that creates healthy forests.” e tree cutting that’s been done leaves behind trees that are healthier, and there’s less fuel so a wild re doesn’t burn as hot, he noted.

He said saw crews have removed some trees that are 125 years old, but they are not considered “old growth.”

In addition, Je erson County is updating both its development and transportation plans, setting expectations of what development is right for Je co’s communities and what transportation patterns should look like in both the atlands and moun- tain communities, according to Abel Montoya, Je co’s director of development and transportation.

Once the plans are updated, then the county will work on creating regulations that follow the plans, he said.

Montoya said his o ce also was looking at the CWPPs for individual re departments and the county to make sure they were aligned.

Evacuation routes, parking on roads

A resident asked about whether the county could prevent vehicles from parking along Bu alo Park Road near Alderfer/3 Sisters Open Space Park, so residents would have better evacuation routes if needed. Currently, vehicles park on Bu alo Park Road when the park’s parking lot is full.

Hoby said Je co Open Space was improving parking at both Alderfer/3 Sisters and at Elk Meadow, and would tow vehicles on the road if they were in the way in case of an evacuation. Park rangers are tapped into Je com911, which is the county’s emergency call management system, so they know when pre-evacuation orders have been issued.

“If there’s a pre-evacuation, rangers get people out (of the parks), so there won’t be disruption to your evacuation e orts,” Hoby said. “ ere’s a lot of cooperation between law enforcement and Je erson County Open Space.” on the EMS services but said he wasn’t in favor of the bike park.

In addition, Montoya said it would be expensive to mitigate road rightsof-ways to facilitate evacuations because the land would need to be surveyed to make sure the county was not disrupting vegetation on private property. He estimated it would cost $50,000 to $100,000 to survey Bu alo Park Road alone, plus hiring a company to do any mitigation.

Attendees also were concerned about short-term rentals, especially those with absentee owners because no one was there to ensure renters were being responsible when it comes to wild re.

Montoya said the county was looking at revising its short-term rental requirements.

Woods suggested that consolidation would make it easier for a larger district to cover EMS call increases, while Devaney said the big issue for Elk Creek would be transporting patients down the hill to the hospital, which is time consuming.

Budget and strategic plan e candidates agreed that tracking the department’s budget was crucial and creating a district strategic plan was important. ey agreed that replacing re equipment such as trucks and ambulances was expensive, plus re ghter gear constantly needed upgrading to improve safety, and the re district needs to plan for those expenditures.

Devaney said her experience with special districts could help improve the district’s investment portfolio, noting that the $5 million the district has in reserves won’t go far when it costs more than $1 million to buy a new re engine.

MacPhee said she wants to ensure that the re district is adequately funded to respond to emergencies but without wasteful spending.

Wagner said a strategic plan would keep the district from being short on resources, and citizens needed to be represented in the discussion.

Newby said he would push for a strict budgetary plan that balances the department’s needs.

Woods said a strategic plan should not just include equipment and vehicles but also personnel to meet the district’s needs.

Recruiting volunteer firefighters e candidates agreed that while paid re ghters, known as career re ghters, can be important, some want to get their training with departments like Elk Creek, then move on to larger re departments where pay is better.

Recruiting volunteer re ghters has been an issue for re departments nationwide, and Elk Creek is no exception.

Newby and MacPhee agreed that reaching out to business owners within the district, especially tradespeople, might be a good way to increase the volunteer re ghter ranks. ose people could more easily leave their jobs in the middle of the day to answer calls.

Wagner suggested creating training programs where volunteers specialized in one area of re ghting that interests them rather than going through the training for all areas such as hazardous materials, wildland and structure res.

“I know people enjoy helping their community and like helping each other,” Wagner said. “We need to tap into that to increase volunteerism.”

Devaney said she believed Chief Jacob Ware has done a good job of nding ways to meet volunteers where they are, while Woods said she didn’t have any rm answers on how to nd more volunteers, noting that the population in Conifer is aging, making it more di cult to nd volunteers.