Protections improve odds

They cleared brush, raked pine needles, trimmed trees — some even created moats of gravel around their homes — but in the end it didn’t make a difference.

At least 58 families lost their homes to the all-consuming Hayman blaze despite having done work around their property to try to prevent fire damage, according to a Rocky Mountain News survey of 85 of the 132 families whose homes burned.

Studies have shown that taking measures to protect against wildfire reduces the odds that a home will burn. A study by Jefferson County, for example, showed that those who had created “defensible spaces” around their homes suffered fewer losses during the 2001 Hi Meadow Fire.

But a monster fire like the Hayman becomes such an unstoppable force of nature that the odds are more easily defied, experts say.

“There are some realities,” said Justin Dombrowski of the Boulder Fire Department. “If you want to make a home 100 percent fireproof or protectable, the first step is not to live up in those areas.”

That doesn’t mean Colorado homeowners should just roll over when a wildfire comes calling. The national Firewise program says education is critical to making sure people use the most effective techniques of fire mitigation. Interest in the Firewise Web site has ballooned since the summer fire season, its director says.

The problem, say experts, is that homeowners aren’t just contending with a wall of flame, but a shower of embers that can travel up to a mile in front of a firestorm..

“When you think about thousands of small burning embers, all they need to do is find one little small crevice or spot, to ignite a house,” Dombrowski said.

Jeff and Alisha Feagin found that out the hard way.

“We did tons of stuff,” Alisha Feagin said. “When we first moved, there was a bunch of dead trees on our property.”

So the Feagins removed all of the brush around their home, cleared the loose pine needles, trimmed trees 10 feet up and removed trees that were within 30 feet of the house.

“We knew it was dry and that we hadn’t had any moisture, and we knew that living in the mountains it was the wise thing to do,” Feagin said. “We kept on it all of the time.

“We thought we were good. We had everything cleaned up.”

Dombrowski said the summer of 2002 even claimed two houses among a group of 85 Forest Service homes in Mesa Verde that were completely rebuilt recently using the latest fireproofing technology.

Trees were cut down, roads were placed around the 1920s-era homes and sprinklers were installed on the steel rooftops. But the Long Mesa fire still took its toll.

“They were able to save 83 of the 85,” he said. “If they hadn’t done the fire mitigation, they would have lost more, if not all, of them. What you look at is how you can improve your chances.”

Long-term proposition

Fully protecting a community of homes can take years.

Perry Park in Douglas County had been planning for a major wildfire for two years and is one of 12 communities that Firewise has recognized nationally for its efforts. Genesee is the other Colorado town honored.

Twice, Perry Park residents were evacuated as the Hayman Fire threatened to roar down a natural culvert and consume the hamlet of about 600 homes. It didn’t, but residents realized they still weren’t prepared.

“Our program is too young. Not enough of the properties had been treated,” said Keith Worley, who heads the Perry Park Metro District’s wildfire mitigation committee. “It’s going to take time and money before we are really prepared.”

Like five to 10 years, Worley says.

“We are just at over 70 percent participation, maybe closer to 80 percent,” Worley says. “Typically it’s a lot lower. Fifteen to 20 percent participation is hard to get.”

Eventually, the community won’t even worry about structure loss, Worley says. “We’ll take the wild out of wildfire.”

Michele Steinberg, national Firewise communities support manager, said no one tracks fire mitigation efforts in specific counties. Firewise generally works with homeowner associations or neighborhoods in the belief that grassroots education is most effective.

“Essentially, our goal is to make people aware that they are at risk,” Steinberg said. “Many more people are at risk than they know.”

Steinberg was impressed that 58 of the 132 who lost their homes in the Hayman said they had done some form of mitigation.

“That’s fair,” Steinberg said. “But for a risky place like Colorado, it’s too bad more people weren’t aware.”

Firewise saw interest grow as the summer fires spiraled out of control.

“In September we had half a million hits on the Web site (www.firewise.org),” Steinberg said. The fires were “a definite wake-up call.”

Rick Stratton, fire modeling analyst at the U.S. Forest Service’s fire sciences lab, visited the remnants of the Hayman Fire to study the blaze. He found that nearly half of the 132 homes destroyed were engulfed by snaking ground fires rather than the nearly unstoppable crown fires that dance along a forest’s upper branches.

“You can’t anticipate what kind of fires will come into your area,” he said. “You have to defend your home against all of them.”

The homeowners in the Hayman area may have prepared for one type of fire but not the other, Stratton said.

“If you simply raked up pine needles and leaves and cleaned around your home and had some dirt or rock landscape, that’s going to mitigate some of the fire’s spread, but a crown fire is a different thing,” he said. “To protect from crown fire, you want trees about 100 feet from the home.”

Danger awareness still an issue

Even though two-thirds of residents surveyed said they did some fire protection work, the reality of the threat apparently had not fully sunk in.

The surveyed homeowners were asked to rate their awareness of wildfire before the Hayman on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being acutely aware and 5 meaning it never crossed their minds. The average score was 2.9.

Many homeowners simply weren’t willing or able to clear enough trees.

“We had raked up all of the pine needles and everything around the house,” said Doug Kinney, who lost his home, “but we had big trees within 10 feet of the house. They were huge, about 125 feet tall.

“I was aware that I shouldn’t have any trees within 25 feet of the house, but I could have never afforded to remove them.”

Removal costs fluctuate, but typically run from $500 for light cutting and removal to thousands of dollars for larger trees and denser vegetation, said Dombrowski.

For many, the issue isn’t just cost.

“There have been people who have said, ‘I would rather lose my house than cut down these trees,'” Dombrowski said. “Some people have very strong emotional connections to them.”

Both the Kinney and Feagin families are rebuilding on their blackened land. Alisha Feagin said they wouldn’t get enough money from their property to move elsewhere, and they like living in the mountains.

This time around, the Feagins are building a home with a steel roof. They already have cleared out the few trees on their property that survived the fire.

But Doug Kinney has decided to stick with building a home much like the one that was destroyed.

“We aren’t getting a steel roof,” he said. “But we will be a lot wiser this time around, mainly with the type of vegetation we have around the house.”

Stratton said the mixed response to fire mitigation, even after losing a home to wildfire, is not surprising.

“It’s a paradox,” Stratton said. “People live in this environment because they like the natural surroundings, but if you are going to live in that environment, you have to live with the consequences.

“A lot of people thought fire just isn’t going to happen to them. Now you hear the argument, ‘It’s not going to happen again.'”

This article originally ran on Jan 4, 2003 in the Rocky Mountain News.