By Dylan Roberts | State Senate District 8
Even after a winter with substantial snowfall and a spring and early summer full of considerable rain and cooler temperatures, we now enter August and the Fall with drier conditions and an increasing risk of wildfire. As of this writing, several fires are currently burning across our state.
With the hotter and drier conditions increasing, wildfires have become a year-round threat with Colorado experiencing an average of 5,618 wildfires annually. Wildfires not only pose an immediate threat to life and property but also damage our climate, air quality, and economy. Recent fires in our area like Lake Christine, Buffalo Mountain, Grizzly Creek, East Troublesome, just to name a few, can cause life-threatening air pollution, as well as destroy local vegetation and soil, which increases the risks of future flooding and landslides. Further, it can take communities years to rebuild destroyed homes, businesses, and infrastructure and they cause insurance costs for existing property to spike or become unattainable altogether.
At the legislature, we decided with bipartisan agreement that Colorado can do more to support our communities who have experienced wildfire destruction and prepare all of us who are at risk of facing wildfires. That’s why I worked on and supported a number of bills this last legislative session that both support homeowners in the aftermath of wildfires and prevent and mitigate wildfire destruction, building on several years of proactive work on this issue at the Capitol.
I know that many homeowners are eager to do more to protect themselves. They want to retrofit their homes with wildfire materials and purchase robust fire insurance, but all this comes at a high cost. For this reason, I was proud to be the prime sponsor of multiple bills that will allow homeowners to take reasonable steps to protect their homes from fires, without breaking the bank. My HB23-1273 creates a grant program for homeowners to retrofit their homes with wildfire resilient materials. This program is a smart investment on behalf of the state and the homeowner, as a retrofit is significantly cheaper and more sustainable than a full rebuild. Additionally, my HB23-1288 ensures that all homeowners will have access to a fairly-priced insurance plan by establishing a price-regulated public property insurance option of ‘last resort’ for homeowners who have been denied coverage because of wildfire risk.
In addition to working to protect homeowners, we at the legislature also understand that more can be done to prevent wildfires from happening in the first place. While wildfires will inevitably continue to occur as we experience rising global temperatures, we can proactively manage their spread by investing in mitigation measures like forest and building maintenance, fire investigation, and community education.
I am proud that this last session, we did just that. With SB23-166, we established a Wildfire Resiliency Code Board to develop fire-safe building codes. We also invested more in our forestry workforce with SB23-005, which charges the Colorado State Forest Service with expanding their workforce development programs and HB23-1246 which will provide training for firefighters, among other careers, free of charge for the student. This will help grow a talented pipeline of professionals ready to take action to ensure our forests are responsibly maintained and fire departments have the workforce they need. Lastly, we invested $26 million to purchase another Firehawk helicopter (SB23-161), $3 million in a fire investigation fund (SB23-013), and renewed investment into our Division of Fire Prevention and Control. These significant investments will allow us to not only respond to emergent wildfires quickly but also ensure we understand fire origins so we can strengthen our mitigation efforts.
While we may have come to anticipate summer wildfires in Colorado, that doesn’t mean that we should be any less concerned or inspired to take action – and this year, we continued that work. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for countless individuals in our state who put their lives on the line to fight our wildland fires and as your state senator, I see it as my responsibility to make sure that our state is doing everything it can to support our wildland firefighters and all other efforts to reduce the prevalence of and damage from wildfire.
While I know we made progress in this last legislative session, there will be more work to do in the years ahead. As always, I encourage you to share your ideas with me as we get ready for the 2024 legislative session. Email me at [email protected] or call me on my cell at 970-846-3054.
Dylan Roberts is the State Senator for Clear Creek, Eagle, Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit Counties
