Given some recent precipitation, wildfire season is approaching slowly this year, although warmer and drier weather is expected to resume in the coming weeks. For this reason, Aspen authorities are saying now is the time to start practicing fire safety and preparing for the event of a fire.
As with any wildfire season, local public safety organizations are working to plan for evacuations, to mitigate by reducing fuels and to educate the public about how to be safe. Two things stand out this year, though — first, local conversations about the Entrance to Aspen have led to more questions than answers about evacuation planning and pushed the topic into the spotlight, so to speak.
“We put out a ton of information every summer for wildfire preparation, and our main focus has been evacuation planning, but because of all the talk about the ‘Preferred Alternative’ and the bridge, the evacuation discussion has come front and center,” Pitkin County Emergency Manager Valerie MacDonald said. “We have limited ingress and egress in many places in the county, so all we can do is issue notices early and for a wide area, because once we put out a Pitkin Alert, in many places there will be gridlock.”
Authorities are encouraging people to have an evacuation plan in place before a situation becomes an emergency. MacDonald added that people do not have to wait to receive a Pitkin Alert before leaving town. If a situation feels uncomfortable, it’s OK to leave town, especially for individuals who may have special needs.
The second thing is the recent cool, wet weather may seem to signal a mild summer, but that doesn’t mean drought conditions won’t return. It simply means that they’ve been delayed.
“With the above-normal snowpack that we have in the high country and the cool, wet spring, all it’s done is delayed wildfire season, so I would urge people to use this time to prepare for wildfire season,” MacDonald said. “It won’t take much to dry out the overgrown fuels later this summer or fall.”
The National Weather Service is forecasting more cool and wet weather over the next week, but the Colorado Drought Monitor shows that dry conditions are beginning to creep back into the state. Later this summer, Pitkin County likely will see more hot, dry and windy days.
The county and the Aspen Fire Protection District are starting to message the community about how to prepare their homes for wildfire season. Ali Hager Hammond, AFPD director of community wildfire resilience, encouraged homeowners to keep several things in mind and to get started now.
“The first five feet around your home is the most critical to pay attention to,” Hammond said. “Hot embers can travel over a mile in the wind. Most homes destroyed by a wildfire are not burned by the active fire front, but by burning embers.”
She added that homeowners should not keep firewood stacked against their houses, nor should they let leaf litter accumulate next to the home or in gutters or on roofs. Vents should be covered with mesh three millimeters or smaller, and rock landscaping is recommended over mulch. Vegetation should be cut back in the five-foot zone.
MacDonald also recommended clearing a defensible space around the home, clearing gutters, raking under decks and hardening homes with fire-resistant materials. Even if people do all those things, she said, if a fire were to start and authorities were unable to stop it, people need to have an evacuation plan in place.
“Many people think that in the event of a large-scale, fast-moving wildfire, the fire department will have things under control and be able to save everyone. We need people to understand that this is not the case,” Hammond said. “It is the public's responsibility to keep themselves safe in case of an emergency evacuation, which is why adequate preparation is so critical.”
All Pitkin County residents are encouraged to sign up for Pitkin Alerts at pitkinalert.org. Through the system, the county provides users with real-time information during emergencies.
The county also recently expanded the alerts to include a translation service. For translated alerts, individuals can download the ReachWell app, select one of 100 languages and select Pitkin Alerts to receive a translated message each time an alert is issues. The app is free and no personal information will be collected by the county.