Protecting our communities - Above, left: Black Hawk Fire Chief/Emergency Manager Chris Woolley discussing the Black Hawk CWPP. Above, right: Bjorn Dahl and Lyle Laverty are forestry consultants contracted to develop Black Hawk’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan. PHOTOS BY WES ISENHART[/caption]

The City of Black Hawk held a meeting on Wednesday, August 23, at the City Council Chambers in Black Hawk regarding the town’s development of a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The meeting consisted of a slide presentation and commentary by forestry consultants from Dahl Environmental Services (DES). Black Hawk has contracted with DES to analyze the citizen surveys and scientific data that will form the basis for the 2023 plan. Black Hawk Fire and Police departments were also involved in the presentation and subsequent discussion. Black Hawk council members including Mayor Dave Spellman attended along with town residents.

Lyle Laverty and Bjorn Dahl from DES were the narrators of a PowerPoint presentation that addressed the different components of the plan. The foresters laid out the steps to developing the Black Hawk 2023 CWPP. They explained the rationale, requirements, goals, risk assessments, and the desired outcomes of the CWPP.

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 defined the purpose of a CWPP as reducing the wildfire risk to a community through a process of planning and implementing hazardous fuel reduction projects. Over the years, CWPPs have also come to include developing evacuation infrastructure.

Developing Black Hawk’s plan started with a survey that was sent to every household in Black Hawk seeking input from residents on their property, homes, and concerns. The Laverty Group has done CWPP plans for a variety of jurisdictions including Evergreen and Laverty stressed that good plans have strong community engagement. Communities with active participation are more likely to develop strong notification and evacuation networks. The goal is to have meaningful discussions among community members and stakeholders regarding priorities for local fire protection and hazardous fuel management.

On the scientific side, Black Hawk emergency services staff (fire and police) will work with the Laverty Group to conduct a fire risk assessment of Black Hawk through an analysis of the fuel hazards, risk of wildfire occurrence, wildfire behavior, infrastructure at risk, community values at risk, and local preparedness, and fire fighting capability. The majority of Black Hawk is considered at low to moderate risk of wildfire, but the town of Lahaina Maui was also rated as a moderate risk. Community values include forests, the banks along North Clear Creek, drinking water, and historic structures.

Laverty stressed that a good CWPP will include plans for fuel management, public safety like evacuation planning and notification communications, restoration of forests, increased protection capabilities, and public awareness. Black Hawk and Central City have unique evacuation challenges because of the number of out of county visitors and tourists that would also need to be evacuated. Fire Chief Chris Woolley discussed the complexity of evacuations and the possibility of developing “sheltering in place” facilities. Chief of Police Michelle Moriarty spoke briefly about the extraordinary coordination required among the different state and local government entities to put in place evacuation plans and infrastructure.

Laverty and Dahl finished their presentation by speaking about the desired outcomes from a realistic CWPP. The primary goal is to create a fire adapted community that can thrive in a Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) area. Through prioritized mitigation and hazardous fuel reduction projects, fire resilient landscapes will be restored and maintained. Black Hawk emergency services will be in position to provide an effective response to wildfire threats. The Black Hawk community will be actively involved in developing realistic action plans for a safer and more fire resilient community.

The meeting ended with a question and answer period. A Forest Service representative answered questions about the Yankee Hill and Lump Gulch hazardous fuels reduction projects in the national forests around Black Hawk. Fire Chief Woolley discussed how the Black Hawk CWPP would be integrated with the Gilpin County CWPP which is currently being updated/rewritten so that the town and the county will be working together to provide a complimentary and comprehensive approach to building fire adapted communities.

The Laverty Group expects to have the initial draft of the Black Hawk CWPP done by October 30. Once the plan has been reviewed and approved by the Black Hawk City Council and the Black Hawk emergency services departments, Black Hawk will be eligible for state, federal and non-profit grants which will provide supplemental funding for the hazardous fuels reduction projects and structure hardening identified in the CWPP.

A CWPP without funding is nothing more than plans that are never realized. One analogy would be the person who makes elaborate plans for what they are going to do when they win the lottery, but their plans will never happen if they don’t win the lottery. A CWPP can only be implemented if there is adequate funding supplied by these grants and being eligible for these grants depends on developing a realistic CWPP plan. The finished Black Hawk CWPP will include contributions from the forestry consultants, Black Hawk emergency services and government and Black Hawk residents and businesses.