Barbara Lawlor

Nederland

A group of wildfire panelists from Boulder County mountain fire districts, state fire management teams, Allstate Insurance and Slaws and Saws greeted about 50 people on Saturday morning to discuss wildfire reality in our region. The Burning Questions forum hosted the open house, including pizza and drinks, to discuss how residents can adapt to a warming future.

It was more than an informative meeting; it also added a firefighter's view of the impact a wildfire can have on individuals who put their lives in danger as trees torch in and around their own neighborhoods.

Nederland Town Trustee Randy Lee opened the meeting. The panelists included Brett Gibson, Chris O'Brien, Dan Escobedo, Ed LeBlanc, Eric Abramson, Jay Stalnacker, Jim Webster, Kevin Zimlinghaus, Marc McClish and Rick Dirr, all of whom are in the front of the line during a wildfire event, such as the recent Cold Springs Fire.

Moderator Tony Cheng led the group through discussions of Lesson Learned during the fire that destroyed eight homes and evacuated hundreds of people.

Open House stations with explanatory posters, brochures and resource information were set up in the Nederland Community Center gym.

Jay Stanacher, Fire Management Officer for the Boulder County Emergency services, said that the true heroes of the fire were the guys doing the evacuation. They were the ones that went into the burn zones and knocked on doors, making sure everyone was accounted for.

He asked, "How do we help the community train people to respond to disasters in ways that are effective?" He said it can take five or six years to evaluate what goes on in a particular fire and come up with the best solutions in hindsight.

"We know the wildfires will get worse and we also know the budget to fight them will also get worse."

Kevin Zimlinghaus, a forester with the Boulder Ranger District, said they are trying to mix other pine species into lodgepole areas, allowing them to move up in the forest as climate change occurs.

"The forest is dynamic. It is not a still life picture that we try to perpetuate over time. We try to establish stands where they are now gone. If all we have is big trees, there is a gap in time when we won't have a forest. Maintaining trees is an important concept to take into the future. Punching holes in the forest adds to the diversity. Our objectives are bigger than a private land owner's concerns."

Nederland Fire Protection District chief Rick Dirr says the goal in firefighting is more to manage it, not to fight it. He said there is a psychological element that happens after a fire, when the firefighters question if they did enough to save a home. "Managing a fire is a cultural change."

Firefighter Eric Abramson said that when a firefighter lives in a town where he knows everybody, it becomes a personal issue; but is the desire to save a house worth a life? "We need to change what we think is important."

People have a mindset that says a firefighter's job is to save their house, to die for them. "We are here to make a difference," says Stanacher. "Not to be heroes. And we need to have reassurance that what we do is right."

The Four Mile Fire was once the size of the community center meeting room said USDA Forest Service Engine Captain Ed LeBlanc. "It is hard to swallow what took place in such a short time. We couldn't do anything. A fire wants fuel and it's going to go until it is out of fuel. As long as there is fuel in an area, there will be fire."

We are all owners of a fire. In fact, whoever is threatened by a wild land fire owns it and we need to take responsibility. We wear seat belts because of something that might happen. A seat belt will mitigate the damage if there is an accident.

Fire experts talk of statistics, like the 100-year fires, but Arizona had 100-year fires five years in a row.

Chief Dirr said that the NFPD has put out three to four abandoned campfires per day over the summer. When they address the people responsible they get, "We didn't know."

But this is not a recent issue. Dirr says he went into the Mountain-Ear archives and discovered that in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the stories about abandoned campfires were just as prevalent. Many of the fires are natural in origin and many are caused by humans. Dirr says the only thing that we have control over is the amount of available fuel for a wildfire, that mitigation makes that manageable.

Stanacher said he was nervous; that as he met up in Nederland there was a burn in a Boulder subdivision, that people were calling in about the impact of smoke in the air. He says fire management agencies are trying to do a good thing and it is having an impact on how the public perceives them, but that it is sometimes necessary to do things that the people don't like. He said it was unfortunate that events like the workshop only occur after a large fire.

Chief Dirr addressed the representatives from the Allstate Insurance company saying that they made his work easier by demanding that people mitigate or lose their insurance coverage. He said that the fire agencies are dealing with 125 years of doing nothing about the dangerous overgrowth of our forests.

During the Four Mile Fire, longtime residents discovered that their houses were built wrong, and they are rebuilding to be more survivable during a wildfire. Fire codes have been updated and fire representatives now have to sign off on building permits.

When a member of the audience asked about the viability of having foam available for a fire, "Don't" was the answer, saying that the homeowner has to be there during the fire and that residents should get out.

“Don't feel overwhelmed” advised one of the panelists. Change is occurring little by little and groups such as Saws & Slaws are making constant mitigation efforts one neighborhood at a time.