DENVER – Fire chiefs across Colorado may stop responding to homeowners who don’t take steps to limit the fire hazards around their homes.
Garry Briese, executive director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, told an interim legislative committee Monday that threatening to not respond could be just the sort of strong message homeowners need to hear.
“We’re going to make it increasingly clear as the fire service that we will not deploy personnel to defend unmitigated properties, and will move to the homes and structures that can be saved … ” Briese said. “We’re going to make it increasingly clear that we’re not going to jeopardize the lives of firefighters for homes that have not been mitigated.”
Briese said homeowners often have short memories. After devastating fire seasons, such as the ones in 2012 and ’13, homeowners tend to pay attention. But during moderate fire seasons, such as the one experienced across most of Colorado this summer, homeowners tend to let their property go, taking few steps to mitigate, Briese said.
But he pointed out liability concerns with failing to respond to homes that are burning. Jurisdictions that have attempted similar programs have found themselves involved in costly lawsuits.
Fire chiefs would like the Legislature to tackle the issue in order to offer statutory guidance.
“We need to sit down with the trial lawyers and talk about it because if we don’t do that, then you’re going to have incident commanders going, ‘If I don’t do this, then I’m going to get sued,’” Briese said.
Fire mitigation is especially important in Southwest Colorado, where most residents live in rural communities surrounded by forests. Mitigation techniques include cutting down trees, eliminating pine needles and thinning flammable vegetation.
Insurance companies have tried similar methods with homeowners. But fire chiefs believe their message would be even stronger. They suggest placing something like a “red diamond” on homes to identify which have not undergone mitigation procedures.
Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, who sits on the Wildfire Matters Review Committee and attended the hearing, said she is open to exploring the program, but that conversations with stakeholders would need to take place.
“The sooner you have those conversations, the sooner we can get something in statute to protect you because I think that’s the message, the red diamond message, is going to be what drives action,” Roberts said.
Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, who also attended, said he would have to weigh the concerns of insurance representatives, as well as attorneys, before making a decision.
“You’re going to be paying a lot of claims out of the fires … ” he said. “It’s inevitable that we’re going to have economic consequences for not doing wildfire mitigation, it’s just inevitable. … But it depends on whether it’s motivation and how it’s sold.”
State insurance officials pointed to several concerns with a “red diamond” policy, including the possibility of eliminating insurance options for homeowners.
“If a home were tagged as not defensible, I don’t know many insurance companies that would want to write (a policy),” said Bobbie Baca, director of property and casualty insurance for the Division of Insurance.
The committee also heard from Paul Cooke, director of the Division of Fire Protection and Control. It was the first report to lawmakers from Cooke on the implementation of a bill from this year that authorized the procurement of an aerial firefighting fleet.
After a back-and-forth between lawmakers and the governor’s office earlier this year about the fleet, lawmakers finally set aside $20 million to purchase or contract a fleet of small fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
Cooke said three helicopters currently are in service, and at least one remote sensing aircraft will be in service by the end of August.
“It’s already paid dividends for Colorado,” Cooke said. “We’ve already seen the usefulness this year.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
