Wildfire Lessons From Colorado: Part 2

Reader Contribution by Bruce Mcelmurray
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In part one of this topic I mentioned that we live in a community in the mountains of southern Colorado. Our community is 15 miles long and half a dozen miles wide with one way in and one way out. Should a wildfire occur between us and our escape route we would have to remain and try to protect ourselves. We are surrounded by the San Isabel National Forest on one side and a large tract of land that is privately owned on the other side. Very little wildfire mitigation has been done outside our community borders. Our community is known as a landowner association and therefore has a board, officers and various committees that run the association. Living in a mountainous area which is heavily wooded makes wildfire one of our chief concerns. I suspect our community is similar to many other areas that are governed by homeowner associations, and our problems are not much different than they experience.

Our community has accomplished some wildfire mitigation over the past few years. Since the U.S. Forest Service is not going to properly mitigate many square miles of the forest that abuts our properties we can only do what we can within our own lots and the common land we all share. The association is making some very smart decisions as well as some that perhaps have not been thoroughly thought out or fully completed

They have established dry hydrants where they can pump water from lakes and streams to a water truck that has been recently purchased. They also purchased a wood chipper that will mulch limbs and small trees, therefore reducing the fuel source. These are very good decisions and will be useful to preventing and fighting a wildfire. There presently are no trained personnel to man the truck or contingency personnel to support the existing equipment. We have summer residents and a small contingent of full time residents like myself. The shortcoming of this program is that older folks like myself are neither trained nor physically able to fight 200 foot flames closing in on you. There is talk of training some people; however to slow or stop a wildfire takes able qualified men who can work together and not be distracted by protecting their own homes or property. The plan is a good plan but lacks completeness.

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