Colorado’s New Wildfire Resiliency Code Explained

This landscape, this ecosystem that we live in, that we’ve chosen to live in, is a frequent fire landscape. The whole Pagosa area is moderate to high wildfire risk according to all the maps and charts. This really becomes a problem now that we’ve built towns and subdivisions in the middle of this changed environment that no longer is naturally cleansing itself.

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Colorado has been experiencing wildfires over the last 20 years that have done significant damage to homes, to lives, and it’s also currently really affecting people’s ability to get homeowners insurance here in this state. And that was a lot of what prompted the state legislature to come up with the new Wildfire Resiliency Building Codes.

The Wildfire Resiliency Code is a model code for jurisdictions within the wildland urban interface to either adopt by reference or adopt by exceeding the expectations of the code. It aims to protect the loss of life, structures, homes, and businesses within the state while preserving economic vitality and insurance coverage.

Across the country, there’s been a big movement to develop fire adapted communities that are built to be resilient and to withstand the inevitable forest fires. We’ve had a lot of examples of where they have worked where there’s been fires come through. They’ll come up to an area that has had mitigation and home hardening, and it works. The fire slows down, it drops down to the ground where it’s just burning grasses and things, and it’s not as much of a threat and doesn’t take out as many lives and homes. In general, what this code is looking to address is the type of building materials that we use and the type of vegetation and the amount of vegetation that we can allow in the close proximity to those homes.

The Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code applies to all newly built construction, whether it be commercial or residential. This code also applies to existing structures if you’re doing substantial improvements. So if you’re living in a single family residence and you want to replace your siding or roofing material, the code then applies to you. If you’re adding an addition over 500 square feet, the code applies to you. The code does not apply to single family residences that are existing and don’t have any planned maintenance. It’s been speculated that the cost increased of this code to build a new home is going to be anywhere from five to 20% but it’s, it’s still the biggest unknown right now. So the town of Pagosa Springs plans to adopt the code April 1st and implementation July 1st. Those are hard set deadlines that the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code Board has set. We’re partnering with Wildfire Adapted and hopefully local insurance agencies to formulate a grassroots initiative through property certification programs, and this is more the town’s proactive measure to help preserve insurance for the existing homes and people that this code might not apply to, but insurance agencies might seek verification from.

For the last 23 years, wildfire adapted partnership have been the main impetus to try and develop fire adapted communities here in this corner of Southwest Colorado, across Archuleta, La Plata, Montezuma, Dolores, and San Juan Counties. On a community level, it takes a lot of people working together on things to change things, but it starts with each individual home. The more individual homes we protect, the more we’re protecting the whole community.

Landscaping is an easy first step for a lot of people, and then more than anything else, I would strongly recommend contacting Wildfire Adapted. They’ll come out and do free property assessments, point you in the right direction of what you need to mitigate on your property, as well as point you in direction of arborists and landscapers to help do that mitigation work if that’s something you can’t achieve yourself. For those looking for more information on the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code they can absolutely reach out to town staff. Both the building and planning division are very well versed in this code, in the adoption of the code.

We can’t stop fire, but we can certainly do things to minimize our risk from it.

For more information, visit wildfireadapted.org. And from our stories like this, visit durangolocal.news.