Take the Wildfire Challenge
Molly Mowery, Wildfire Planning International
It can be easy to think about wildfire hazard as a force of nature entirely beyond human influence or control. We are bombarded with images from the media showing huge flames devouring homes and forests and overwhelming fire fighting resources. In some cases, this situation is absolutely true.
But we don’t get off the hook so easily. The truth is that there are a number of actions that we can and should take to reduce the impacts from a wildfire event – and land use planning plays a significant role in this conversation. Without committing ourselves to taking more action, we can continue to expect overstretched firefighting resources, home and property losses, and economic impacts to our communities. The good news is that there are many accessible ways for planners to insert themselves into wildfire hazard planning and promote safer community development.
Think more about fuels
Wildfire is a physical process. In addition to oxygen and heat, wildfire requires “fuel” – including homes, decks, fences, and vegetation – to keep it burning. When we know how to change the fuel types and fuel arrangements in our environments, we can dramatically reduce fire’s ability to sustain itself.
Changing fuel types, from a non-technical perspective, means requiring fire-resistant building materials and vegetation over other less fire-resistant alternatives. For example, communities can have requirements for Class A roofing installations and ban wood shake roofs in areas deemed at higher risk to wildfire. Other ignition resistant construction requirements typically address siding, eaves, soffits, windows, gutters, attic vents, chimneys, decks and foundations.
Changing fuel types at a property’s landscape scale (e.g., recommending specific fire-resistant plants, trees, shrubs, and grasses) will vary more across communities because of differences in ecosystems. For instance, if you work in a higher elevation mountain community in Colorado, the primary fuel types to address are likely to be lodgepole pine, spruce, and fir – all of which carry fire easily under the right conditions. Aspen, on the other hand, has a lower flammability and is considered one of the few mountain trees that are safer to use when landscaping within thirty feet of a home. In lower elevations, ponderosa pine and juniper are the “watch out” fuels that should be kept at least thirty feet from a home due to their high flammability, or replaced with lower flammability shrubs and plants.
Changing fuel arrangements – the proximity of fuels in relation to one another – can also have a big impact on wildfires by reducing how quickly a fire spreads. On a community scale, consider how close homes are to one another within a wildfire-prone subdivision and whether there are appropriately placed setbacks between homes or green spaces between neighborhoods. If setbacks between homes are too low, and there are continuous fuels such as wooden fences and flammable vegetation throughout the subdivision, the result can be disastrous.
The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs offers a prime example of this. Distances of less than thirty feet separated many homes within the mountain shadows neighborhood. The radiant heat and flames from nearby neighboring homes quickly turn into an urban conflagration – a wildfire that started out on wildland areas and entered a suburban area, causing many home-to-home ignitions. There were also many wooden fences that carried flames between properties, acting as “wicks” throughout the subdivision. Requiring breaks in landscaping features such as defensible space and a minimum distance of 30 feet between structures will decrease the likelihood that fire can carry itself between properties or ignite neighboring structures from the radiant heat of burning homes.
Larger subdivision planning efforts can also help to break up the fuels between natural areas and the built environment. Community buffers with proper landscaping, such as parks, golf courses, and greenbelts with tree crowns spaced at least ten feet apart, can reduce the amount of fuel available to a fire as it moves from a forested area towards a community. Whenever possible, take advantage of other maintained features such as community trails, power lines, or water features (where appropriate). These can act as fire suppression control lines – areas where firefighters can more safely respond to and manage a wildfire to keep it from advancing into neighborhoods. Ensuring wide enough access for fire apparatus to turnaround will also keep your local fire department more able to do their part in response.
Use plans, codes and resources
Addressing fuel types and arrangements (i.e., construction materials, landscaping, site planning) can be done through a number of planning channels: Building Code, Land Use and Development Code, Comprehensive Plan or standalone “Wildland-Urban Interface” (WUI) codes. Other effective planning tools are the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) and the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. CWPPs, when implemented effectively, identify a community’s wildfire risk and specify actions to take at multiple scales to reduce risk.
A few additional tips: if your community utilizes multiple plans and codes to address wildfire (which is typically a good thing), ensure that these plans are adequately cross-referenced and compatible. For example, the future land use map should also consider areas at highest risk to wildfire hazard. Are these areas identified as future areas of development? If so, what building and landscaping requirements need to be enacted before development can occur? Better yet, consider redirecting new growth to safer areas with a reduced hazard rating. 
These recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg. As a first step, planners should familiarize themselves with their local fire leadership and any wildfire-specific initiatives such as a CWPP or WUI code. Fortunately, many communities are already engaged in wildfire across the state, and make for some fantastic locally grown examples to add to your toolbox:
- Following the Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012, the Colorado Springs Fire Department created an Ignition Resistant Construction Design Manual – a guide to smart construction and wildfire mitigation in the wildland-urban interface:
http://www.springsgov.com/units/fire/wildfire/hillside_wildfire_mitigation_design_manual.pdf - Colorado State Forest Service maintains a database of completed CWPPs from all over Colorado. Check out if your community has one by going to this list:
http://csfs.colostate.edu/pages/CommunityWildfireProtectionPlans.html - Colorado State Forest Service also provides excellent guidance on fire-resistance landscaping, including recommendations for “defensible space” around a home:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/natres/06303.html - Sharing and learning from peers offers insightful opportunities. The national “Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network” emphasizes this peer-to-peer approach and includes two Colorado organizations – Coalition for the Upper South Platte and FireWise Council of Southwest Colorado. Learn more at:
www.FACNetwork.org. - Upcoming conferences in the state will provide venues to discuss wildfire resiliency efforts with colleagues: Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute (March 12 & 13, 2015, Denver) and the Colorado Wildland Fire Conference (September 24-26, 2015, Snowmass Village)
- Finally, a more nationally-oriented but excellent best practices guide for planners and regulators is from the National Fire Protection Association: Community Wildfire Safety Through Regulation, available at: https://www.nfpa.org/~/media/Files/Wildland/WildfireBestPracticesGuide.pdf
Molly Mowery is owner of Wildfire Planning International – a consulting firm specialized in finding community risk reduction solutions from wildfire. She can be reached at Molly@wildfireplanning.com.
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