GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado - Deputy Fire Marshal Ron Biggers appreciates the recent wildfire mitigation work along Highlands Drive leading into the Highlands Estates subdivision, east of Glenwood Springs Golf Club in West Glenwood.

"We've had meetings there since Coal Seam in 2002," he said.

A Glenwood Springs Fire Department 2007 Community Wildfire Protection Plan ranked the neighborhood as subject to the highest fire risk. It's especially dangerous because of fuel buildup below the hill the neighborhood sits on and there only being one road out in case of an emergency.

"If something started below them, it would come right up into those houses," Biggers said.

The homeowner's association worked with a Fire Ready representative to obtain a grant from the Colorado State Forest Service of up to $13,000 in matching funds. The HOA used the funds to contract with Fire Ready and the White River Tree Service. The companies thinned out vegetation about 30 feet out from either side of the road, Biggers said. Fire Ready started at the beginning of the month and finished Wednesday.

Now, if a fire's burning, trees won't burn and block the road, and fire will be kept lower to the ground and hopefully off the road so residents can escape.

The wildfire protection plan studied 23 area neighborhoods on the edge of wildlands and gave 70 percent of them at least a very high hazard rating in terms of their vulnerability to wildfires. With 2,100 homes in those neighborhoods, fire officials said, there's no way fire trucks can protect all of them in a major fire, so it's up to homeowners to help protect themselves.

Biggers said Highlands homeowners have done some mitigation work on their properties but need to do more. Any mitigation work encourages federal agencies to do more on neighboring lands, he said, and a homeowner's efforts could even make firefighters more likely to try to save their home from a fire.

The next thing the Highlands subdivision needs to do is create another route out of the subdivision for emergency access. Firefighters are more reluctant to enter an area during a fire where they could be trapped with no exit, Biggers said.

Things have already heated up this season with the recent County Road 100 Fire near Carbondale. But a new technology could soon aid in fighting fires and tracking wildfire mitigation efforts.

In May, Biggers said, officials plan to start visiting and rating individual homes in terms of fire danger and mitigation efforts. The information would be stored in a computer database and could be easily distributed to firefighters who respond from out of the area, as is often the case in large fires. This would help them fight fires by cutting down on the amount of time they spend evaluating an area and forming a game plan to fight fires, Biggers said.

Contact Pete Fowler: 384-9121pfowler@postindependent.com



Post Independent, Glenwood Springs Colorado CO