Arvada Fire developing community wildfire plan

BY LILLIAN FUGLEI LFUGLEI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

As the summer heat rolls in, Arvada Fire is working to make sure communities stay safe. is summer, that e ort comes in the form of a Community Wild re Protection Plan.

e plan, also known as a CWPP, is a collaborative e ort to ensure that wild re risk is avoided or mitigated. For Arvada, a third-party agency, Dahl Environmental Services, will come in and assess wild re risks in the area.

According to Deanna Harrington, community risk reduction chief at Arvada Fire, once the plan is in place, they’ll be eligible for grant funding to apply some of the risk mitigation outlined in the plan. “We also believe in a model of community risk reduction,” said Harrington, “which is this datadriven process so that we’re getting the biggest bang for our buck, if you will. Making sure that we’re focusing our energies on where we can really make a di erence.”

According to Harrington, CWPPs are growing in popularity and use, especially in Je erson County.

“We have so many similarities to the area where the Marshall Fire happened,” Harrington added. “So we know that it’s something that has potential (for wild re). We have not only the fuels that are of concern, but we have the weather patterns that add to making it a higher risk area.”

However, the CWPP’s work won’t be done once it’s written. It’s a living document, meaning that it will change to adapt to new risks or challenges faced by Arvada.

“Once it’s signed o , it’s good for the next ve years,” said Tracy Leyva, wild re risk reduction specialist at Arvada Fire. “But that doesn’t mean it’s going to sit idle, this is something that we will continue to build on. For the next ve years. We’ll be adding on to that again, see ‘do we need to make any corrections here’ and kind of go from there.”

Harrington and Leyva both emphasized the collaboration required for a CWPP. e plan is outlined by Arvada Fire and Dahl Environmental Services, with input from local community leaders, homeowner’s associations, and community members.

In order to seek community input, Arvada Fire hosted a kicko meeting on June 13. Harrington said many community concerns involved evacuation methods and mitigation of natural re hazards.

“We really want to get that input from as many community members and stakeholders as possible,” Harrington said. According to her, the meeting was an e ort to “try to hear their voices of concern and their input as to, you know, what we should be doing and have their guidance in the whole process.”

Arvada Fire will host another listening session that is not yet scheduled, likely in late August. Until then, community members can take a survey to provide input on the CWPP.

“Our mission is to preserve lives, property and the environment,” Harrington added. “So the more that we can do proactively, the more that aligns with our mission, and it keeps our personnel safe. So it’s a win-win all around, we want to see our community thrive.”

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