Breckenridge residents fired up over ‘defensible space’ proposal ( Colorado Wild Fires )

summit daily news ^ | February 26, 2009 | Robert Allen

[george76]

The town’s defensible space proposal — and how it might be enforced — has some Breckenridge property owners frustrated with the prospect they’ll have to pay to cut down the very trees they were once told to protect.

More than 40 residents visited Breckenridge town hall Tuesday afternoon for lively discussion on the future of their landscaping and wildfire protection.

The aging forest and spread of mountain pine-beetle infestation have made the possibility of catastrophic wildfire reasonable enough for council to consider the proposal. The idea behind defensible space is to create buffer zones between structures and forests.

Officials with the fire district said the defensible space will help protect homes, residents and firefighters — and will also help to keep the fires on the ground, where they may be extinguished more easily.

The likelihood of a wildfire in coming years is high, said fire chief Gary Green, who attended the work session.

“We will have a fire,”

[whipitgood]

The forests in Summit County, where Breckenridge is located, are in terrible shape. There is a huge amount of standing dead wood, both on the outside of the towns and in the towns. A defensible perimeter is urgently needed in case a fire breaks out. The insane policy of protecting trees may become very expensive in Colorado.

[DuncanWaring]

Property owners required to remove trees would have to pay a $45 permit fee.

WTF?

They have to pay a "permit fee" to do something mandatory?

[conservativeharleyguy]

I’ve been through an “urban/forest interface” fire in a mountain town. 400 homes burned overnight.

I still believe that the only reason my house didn’t burn was because my son and I had just cleared over 50 big bags of pine needles off of the ground in my yard a week before the fire. It did leave lots of bare dirt, which looked ugly, but sure doesn’t burn very well.

A lot of the fires in town started from giant cinders landing in peoples’ uncleared yards and igniting the pine duff which then overtook their houses.

Cut the trees - no pine duff, and no worries about a “crown fire”.

[Red_Devil 232]

The $45 is what this is all about! I bet a year ago if a home owner went out and cut down a tree to protect his property he was fined hundreds of dollars.

Now every homeowner is going to to be required to cut trees where there is a danger of fire - but of course they will have to pay the permit fee.

[DuncanWaring]

I’ve been through an “urban/forest interface” fire in a mountain town.

Los Alamos?

[I Buried My Guns]

"....I’ve been through an “urban/forest interface” fire in a mountain town..."

Sounds like you got a story to tell us, FRiend. We want details!

[george76]

Defensible space gives the fire fighters a chance to save some one’s home.

Good work.

[george76]

Not a question of if, but when the fire comes.

IMO

[conservativeharleyguy]

Ding, ding, ding.

[DuncanWaring]

I passed through there briefly in 1993.

Didn’t look like the kind of place you’d want to be if it caught fire.

[conservativeharleyguy]

Well, maybe not too much to tell. The "forest experts" in the federal govt. (Park Svc.) decided to start a prescribed ("controlled") burn in Northern New Mexico in May (windy season) after a very dry winter.

It got out of control. Imagine that. Who could have ever guessed that 40-60 mph winds might do that to a fire? It rapidly "crowned" in a dense forest that had been overprotected for 100 years and allowed to overcrowd from a natural 30-40 Ponderosas an acre to way over 100.

With too much "ladder fuel" that had never naturally burned out of the "understory", it allowed what would have been a brush fire near the ground to climb to the tops of giant Ponderosa Pines, where it consumed the liquid fuel in the trees (pine sap), and went off like bombs.

Think 1,000 or more gallons of what is basically turpentine, instantly sucked up the tree by a heat-generated, convective capillary effect, and exposed to oxygen and heat. BOOM!!! From tree to tree in seconds at up to 100 mph. At one point, I saw it come over a mile-wide ridge, and crown its way down a 1,500 foot hill faster than I can tell you about it.

For some reason, My street was the only street in my neighborhood that didn't have burnt houses. Who knows why?

But after the fire, I found cinders the size of dinner plates lying on bare dirt in my yard where we had removed almost a foot of dry pine needles a week before.

My Fire Dept. buddies told me that lots of houses burned because they never cleared their yards, and had flammables all over the place.

I also put all of my dirt bikes, gas cans, oil cans, and BBQs out on the street before I evacuated. The guys told me later that a number of houses had evidence of BBQ tanks exploding and burning the house down. Again, who knows?

The county had tons of very nice "defensible space" information available for anyone who wanted it, but they didn't force anyone to use it. But hey, FEMA did pay a few hundred million dollars to fix it all (since the govt, did start the fire). It's still hosed to this day, and that section of forest will never be the same.