Marc Tonglen, Peak to Peak. It was the tell-tale days in the late 1990s when Rob Savoye and Michigan Mike held their first music gathering upon his property at Caribou Ranch. Little did we know at the time that the infamous ranch would one day become open space and that Rob Savoye would become one of the most re-known digital cartographer of rural mountain terrain in our state and all around the world.

While working the Cameron Peak Fire this Summer and Fall, Rob and his son Abe were called to the front lines to help protect human lives and property in the Poudre Canyon and up toward Red Feather Lakes. As the peak terrain was mostly inaccessible, Rob began doing what he enjoys doing during his short periods of downtime while digging fire lines, dropping water ponds and clearing timber – he mapped the terrain with his feet on the ground so that current and future response times could be faster and more accurate in order to save more property and lives.  

Over the twenty years, Rob’s work in digital mapping of obscure and relatively unreachable terrain has helped improve disaster response time both locally and worldwide. His work and depth of experience has now garnered him a position as Senior Technology Lead at the Humanitarian Open Street Mapping Team. This organization is best known for its international team dedicated to humanitarian action and community development through open mapping.  Rob now speaks at conferences on open mapping for International Disasters all around the globe.

While he’s mapped previously unrecorded or inaccurate mountainous terrain in Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Tibet, China, it is his work in Gilpin and Boulder County that has set the bar high for just how good disaster mapping can be. As Savoye explains, “In the Timberline Fire District, there’s only a handful of old guys left. It’s a much younger crew we have now that is new to Gilpin County, and some of them don’t even live up here full time.  Having really good maps has enabled them to be just as productive as the folks that have lived here for decades. The quality of these maps has gotten them over that hump of not knowing the terrain and it helps them feel more productive and confident, which in turn helps the community.”  Savoye continues, “All these guys are really motivated and well-trained, yet Gilpin County of years past was just not well mapped, not even on Google Maps.  With these open source maps, they have the route on the phone before leaving the house with shoes on.  It’s really useful.  All of our fire trucks have tablets with this mapping software.”

As Rob elaborates further, “By applying the mapping technology for International Disasters to both Nederland and Timberland Fire, we now have the best maps one could ever imagine. Our maps are incredibly detail oriented and they help us find people that are in need.  For instance, just this last weekend, we used it to find a hurt mountain biker on a backcountry trail.” He carries on, “I’ve pretty much mapped everything in Gilpin to the highest possible level of detail.  It drops our response time in half.  When there was a fire start on an ATV trail in No Man’s Land near Russel Gulch, our maps helped us squelch that blaze before there could be any spread. It’s definitely been of benefit to the community.”

As Rob so humbly speaks these words, “of benefit to the community,” it still seems like a gross understatement.  The work of Rob’s keen mapping has placed Timberline and Nederland Fire Departments at the leading edge of all rural fire departments around the world.  When it comes to navigating previously uncharted or inaccurate terrain, Savoye’s work is the best there is.  His keen passion and dedication to on the ground mapping saves our forests, it saves our property and it saves lives.

Our community thanks you Rob Savoye, for doing the great work that you do in keeping us safe amidst unknown and turbulent times.

(Originally published in the October 15, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)