FLOOD03008

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Colorado Wildfire Hazard Mitigation Plan Annex I
• Date: 8/1/1995
• Prepared For: State of Colorado
• Prepared By: USFWS
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Flood Mitigation/Flood Warning/Watershed Restoration

"

"Structural defense tactics
alone means lost initiatives
in perimeter fire control."

"We have a difficult land
ownership/protection
problem. "

.

"We may not be able to
defend some of our
department's interface
areas against wildfires."

"Interface" occurs in all areas - from the brushlands of the foothills, to
the pifion-juniper "deserts" in southern Colorado, to the pine forests in the
Black Forest to lodgepole thickets in high elevations. Interface is even
within the city limits of cities such as Breckenridge, Colorado Springs,
Durango, Frisco and Vail.

As development continues into wildlands, it adds new dimensions of
difficulty to fire protection, increases costs and dollar losses and presents
high fire threats to those improvements and to the public. Wildfire control
in the interface has become a tactical exercise of moving from structure to
structure on a case,by-case basis, often over inadequate access roads, with
limited water supplies and inappropriate equipment. The interface also
demands more rapid, costly fire attack from the air. Structural defense
becomes primary thereby allowing fire perimeters to easily grow and
threaten more improvements and natural resources.

I

Reasons for the Interface

Specific reasons for dwellings and buildings outside cities and towns vary
with each site. General reasons for the wildland/urban interface in
Colorado are:

1. Land ownership patterns
Public and private lands in Colorado's forest and brush lands are highly
mixed. Much of this is due to random early settlement, homesteading,
mining claims, lands set aside during statehood and public lands managed
by a variety of public agencies. Except for the highest elevations, few
large forested tracts exist without some intermingled ownerships.

These complex, intermingled ownership patterns also compound the fire
protection problem. Each jurisdiction must respond to wildfires
threatening its land. Duplication of fire responses easily results.

2. Escape to rural living
Despite the state's pristine reputation, Colorado residents want to avoid
the noise, pollution, crowds, rules, taxes and hectic pace of city lifestyles.
They seek the serene and peaceful wildlands to raise their families and live
out their retirement years. Colorado's mountains beckon in the distance,
and land developers are busy providing the buyer with building sites. It is
not uncommon for people to commute as much as one hour each way from
their home in rural forest and brush areas to their jobs in the city.

Urban residents and nonresidents want that "cabin" in the woods, to get
away if only for a weekend. Increasing urbanization of outdoor recreation
areas is now common and many of the "cabins" are condominiums and
expensive homes - built virtually under the boughs of the forest. These
people believe the more hidden and inaccessible to the "outside world,"
the better.

The result: motels, condominiums, summer camps, ski resorts, hunting
retreats and residential subdivisions are located on natural resource
wildlands and former ranchlands and more are being developed every
year.

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