John Scarffe, Gilpin County.

The Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners approved a contract for a fire management plan during its regular meeting on March 27, 2018, at Central City Hall. County Manager Leslie Klusmire said the County is starting to work on a plan for up to three years for the Wildfire Response Planning Group.

She would like to add Finance Director Clorinda Smith and Human Resources Director Susie Allen to the group. As a result, the County met with Anchor Point to discuss fire management services that could assist in wildlife preparedness.

Klusmire said they met with the Timberline Fire Protection District and have been doing quite a bit of work. “This is our first round of recommendations.”

Colorado State University Extension Agent Irene Shonle presented the scope of work for the Anchor Point Wildfire Response Team. They have a 2009 version and a 2012 update with a list of prioritized projects.

Currently, the County has almost no snow, so perhaps some of the roadside cleaning could be tackled by the Road and Bridge crew. If not, it won’t cost a lot of money to accomplish, Shonle said.

“Where we have County rights of way and priority roadside thinning, they made recommendations. If we have to get landowner permission, that is a very difficult thing, and one landowner can torpedo the whole thing,” Shonle said.

County Community Development Staff figured out Gamble Gulch and Patricia Road, which would be six miles and is a lot of thinning in a very high priority area. That is well beyond what can happen this year.

“The County needs to figure out how it might tackle these projects”, Shonle said. They also have an additional 8-1/2 miles of high priority thinning, but they don’t have a rubric for deciding very high versus high priority.

They are ahead of schedule on projects. “It is a recommendation that we start making a dent in some of the roadside thinning. The Forest Service can mark them or they can do prescriptive thinning,” Shonle said. There will be some push back because everyone does not know these are County rights of way.

If fire trucks can’t get in or fire fighters can’t see, it will help with that and then will act as a fire break, Shonle said. Since 2009 that has been a recommendation.

Community Development Director Stephen Strohminger said the County should lead by example and show residents that’s what they need to do. Klusmire said that as the county thins, maybe the residents will say “I’d better thin.”

Shonle reported that the fire chief said some of these roads are daunting to go up and it would be nice to be thinned out. “We only picked the ones that have public rights of way.”

The second recommendation is a list of secondary egress, because a lot of communities do not have a good secondary egress, so it could potentially be a death trap, Shonle said. They are prioritized with rights of way the County owns and some Forest Service lands -- ones that are shorter and more feasible.

Some may cross private property or Forest Service land, so this is going to be more complicated but it’s essential to get some of these egresses. Commission Chair Ron

Engels said a lot of prep work can be done before Public Works gets involved.

Klusmire said they don’t want emergency access to become fun roads to drive down and they will need ways to control access.

Klusmire said they are not going to get all this done this year but they will be projects for next year and the years after. Public Works Director Gordon Thompson said: “It’s a good thing, and we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ll have to do this when we can.”

Engles said the County has set aside, in this year’s budget, money for planning, so they can get some temporary labor if needed. Thompson said Public Works has been doing it on narrow roads like Smith Hill for their own safety, so it’s something we can do, but we will have a lot of things ahead of that. Shonle said they are not recommending you drop everything.

Klusmire brought up a major point. People have put diesel in cisterns and the County would like to see this stopped and would like to get actual water in them as it is a severe fire hazard.

The Board agreed, and Engles said it looks like a huge amount of organization was imposed on what was chaos. Klusmire said that the Wildfire planning group went through this and realized staff could do that themselves, so they took out evacuation planning at $8,000.

Commissioner Gail Watson said she needed a little more help understanding the $38,000 total cost. “What are the deliverables and how important is it?”

Klusmire said it is very important to the fire fighters. Gilpin County Community Development Director Stephen Strohminger said that any time you ask someone to put together a data base that is interactive that is the biggest expense.

The Board approved a contract for Anchor Point not to exceed $50,500. The Board met on April 10, 2018.

The next meeting of the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 24, 2018, at the Central City Hall.