An organization focused on protecting Roaring Fork Valley residents from wildfire just received a big federal grant.
The Wildfire Collaborative Roaring Fork Valley was awarded $865,009 on Sept. 23 through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program.
Fifty-eight projects were selected in this third round of funding of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program. The funding comes from the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was frozen by the Trump administration earlier this year. While this program funding has been released, parts of the $1.2 trillion bill are still being held up.
Locally, the money will go to protecting high-risk neighborhoods in the southern part of Glenwood Springs, including Mountain Springs Ranch and Three Mile Mobile Home Park.
Angie Davlyn directs the Wildfire Collaborative Roaring Fork Valley. She said the homes around Three Mile and Four Mile Roads are built into steep hillsides with lots of dense, flammable vegetation.
“This really helps us target a specific area of Glenwood that we know is not only high wildfire risk, which certainly applies to many places, but also has some specific challenges,” Davlyn said. “including really limited evacuation routes, [and] no cell service, which makes it tough to get notifications.”
With limited evacuation routes, Davlyn said sheltering in place might be essential during a fire, so she wants those homes to be as safe as possible.
The new funding will go toward removing flammable shrubs and trees in areas surrounding those homes, but the Wildfire Collaborative and its partners won’t be chopping at random.
Their mitigation work will use an advanced fire prediction model designed by Dr. Hussam Mahmoud, a structural engineer who has a novel way of simulating fire pathways.
“He's truly the only wildfire modeler that I'm aware of that can effectively model not just how fire moves through forest, but how fire moves through populated areas,” Davlyn said.
Mahmoud’s model has been up to 86% accurate when compared to the real-world building damage from past fires. Davlyn said that allows the Wildfire Collaborative to identify the most effective places for prescribed burns and vegetation removal.
“We certainly don't want to cut down a bunch of trees when we don't have to,” Davlyn said. “If we can find just the right space to do these treatments, all the better.”
Davlyn wants to incorporate the model into as much of the Roaring Fork Valley as possible. It’s currently being applied in the towns of Snowmass Village and Marble, and Carbondale and Basalt will consider budgeting for it next year.
The Wildfire Collaborative has secured $5.4 million in wildfire resilience grant funding since its founding in April 2024. They’re in the midst of a $2 million project near Sopris Mountain Ranch, which Davlyn said will create a much-needed fire break between Carbondale and Snowmass Village.