Matters Memo

City of Boulder City Council Agenda Item Meeting Date: October 22, 2026 Agenda Title Enhancing Boulder’s Wildfire Resilience through (1) the Development of a Comprehensive Wildfire Home Hardening Implementation Hub and (2) a Comprehensive Assessment and Analysis of Current or Planned City WildfireRelated Programs, Projects and Actions

Staff Contact • • •

Brian Anacker, Science and Climate Resilience Sr Manager, OSMP Jamie Barker, Public Information Officer for Boulder Fire-Rescue and Wildfire Ready, Communications and Engagement Pam Davis, Assistant City Manager, City Manager’s Office

Executive Summary The purpose of this study session is to present the final work of the 2026 Wildfire Resilience Council Priority. The scope of this priority consists of two complementary tasks: development of a comprehensive Home Hardening Implementation Hub to help residents translate wildfire preparedness information into meaningful mitigation action, and development of a citywide prioritization and measurement framework to guide investments and track progress. Together, these efforts connect the city's strategic approach to wildfire resilience with the practical tools residents need to reduce risk at the property level. Through the creation and delivery of these items, and building on substantial existing investments and the recently updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), staff have developed an integrated framework to guide wildfire resilience efforts through

2030. The city’s Wildfire Resilience Team is calling this framework “Wildfire Ready 2030.” Wildfire Ready 2030 represents a framework for how Boulder implements targeted, coordinated, and measurable wildfire resilience and risk reduction work. As part of this framework, staff have brought together over 130 projects under 10 priority programs, a new Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Risk Index to guide geographic prioritization, and 14 performance measures with targets through 2030. Wildfire Ready 2030 is organized around four complementary strategies, each with a unique, yet interconnected, role in reducing wildfire risk. •

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Fire Adapted Communities: Help the community to understand wildfire risk and act before, during, and after a fire. Specifically, the city will inspire community action on home hardening and defensible space through assistance, financial incentives, and alignment with emerging insurance practices and initiatives. Resilient Landscapes: Strengthen our deepest line of defense by reducing fuels on public and private natural lands. Safe and Effective Wildfire Response: Focus on the city’s north star of protecting life by continuously strengthening wildfire response, evacuation, and ignition prevention. Responsible Governance: Connect the work across city departments, diversify funding, track progress, and share the progress with the community.

Boulder is already leading the way on wildfire resilience. Current programs reflect significant and recent enhancements, and implementation will continue through prioritizing and focusing these existing resources. Staff has also identified a few strategic opportunities (priority enhancement programs) in the near term where additional investment has the greatest potential to further reduce wildfire risk. Staff are pursuing external grants, proposing to redirect additional Open Space Funds towards wildfire resilience, and evaluating opportunities to realign existing resources to achieve these 2027 strategic accelerations. The overall direction for Wildfire Ready 2030 is clear: build on Boulder’s strong existing investment and resources, concentrate these resources and efforts where they will have the greatest impact, and continually improve our approach to reducing wildfire risk. The Wildfire Ready 2030 implementation framework outlined in this memo and to be presented on Oct 22 is cutting edge and will be seen as a model for how WUI communities across the west can organize and prioritize wildfire resiliency efforts and staff are proud of what they are able to deliver. The study session marks a transition from framework development to focused, accelerated, targeted, coordinated, and measurable implementation.

Questions for Council 1. Does council have any clarifying questions on the Wildfire Ready 2030 framework? 2. Does city council have any feedback on the recommended strategy to use the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Risk Index to prioritize geographic areas of highest risk across all programs? 3. Does council have feedback on the recommended priority enhancement programs? Note: Pending council feedback, staff intend to finalize any workplan and funding shifts for Wildfire Ready 2030 to be brought back in Spring 2027.

Alignment with City Plans and City Council History Sustainability, Equity and Resilience (SER) Framework and Citywide Strategic Plan Alignment SER Framework Goal Area • • •

Safe Livable Environmentally Sustainable

Citywide Strategic Plan • •

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Strategy #1: Focus community safety efforts on reducing community harm at critical locations known for high incident rates or significant vulnerabilities. Strategy #2: Advance efforts to enhance regional disaster prevention, preparedness, and response that leverage existing partnerships and prioritize city investments. Strategy #9: Increase community and ecosystem resilience to the current and future impacts of climate change. Strategy #11: Prioritize sustainability values through new and existing policies.

The wildfire prioritization framework directly supports these strategies by identifying areas of elevated risk and focusing existing resources on programs and locations with the greatest potential for risk reduction.

Alignment with Additional City Plans The projects and programs mentioned in this memo are also related to over 20 plans across the city. The primary plan supporting Wildfire Ready work is the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), which was most recently updated in 2024.

City Council History    

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April 2022: Council Study Session  Wildfire Resilience Presentation Feb 2023: Wildland Fire Resilience Information Packet to City Council  02.16.23 City Council Agenda May 2024: Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) Final Draft Discussion  Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) Final Draft Discussion Dec 2024: Council Study Session: Wildfire Hardening Policy and Regulation Updates & Waterwise Landscaping Policies and Regulation Updates  12.12.24 Agenda;  See attachment D for Summary of Current City Wildfire Mitigation Work May 2025: City Council Meeting  Wildland Urban Interface Code Adoption July 2025: City Council Study Session  Waterwise Landscaping Sep 2025: City Council Meeting  First Reading, Waterwise Landscaping  Wildfire Ready – Citywide Wildfire Resilience Update April 2026: Power Reliability and Resilience  April 2026 Power Reliability and Resilience memo May 2026: Study Session including charter committee recommendation of a potential charter change to Sec. 167 regarding purposes of open space land to explicitly recognize wildfire resilience.  05.14.2026 City Council Agenda August 2026: Study Session Enhancing Boulder’s Wildfire Resilience through (1) the Development of a Comprehensive Wildfire Home Hardening Implementation Hub and (2) a Comprehensive Assessment and Analysis of Current or Planned City Wildfire-Related Programs, Projects and Actions  Aug 2026 Study Session Packet Oct 2026 Budget Hearing  Meeting

Analysis Wildfire Ready 2030 Context Boulder faces extreme wildfire risk; the 2021 Marshall Fire stands as a stark reminder of this reality. In January 2026, City Council established wildfire resilience as a 2026 Council Priority, directing staff to develop a comprehensive, citywide assessment of current wildfire-related work to establish priorities for continuing investment and action, including a Home Hardening Implementation Hub to help residents act on home assessment recommendations. This work is carried out by the Wildfire Resilience Team, a cross-departmental group spanning 10 city departments, reflecting the current annual city investment of ~$10 million+ in wildfire resilience work, and aligned under the city's recently updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). In August 2026, staff shared with council the draft foundation of a more deliberate implementation approach that included a project inventory, priority programs, a WUI Risk Index, measures of progress, and more. Here, we share the completed work and refer to it as the Wildfire Ready 2030 framework. Below, we list out its key deliverables.

Fig. 1. Wildfire Ready 2030 strategic framework, program and geographic priorities, and performance measurement.

Wildfire Ready 2030 Vision Staff developed an overarching north star to guide our wildfire resilience work: We continually work towards making the community safer and stronger by preparing for wildfire and reducing risk to life safety. Boulder stands as a model of comprehensive wildfire resilience, where community awareness translates into proactive and meaningful action, and advanced natural area management harmonizes ecological health with public safety. Through shared community responsibility and partnership, we reduce risk and enhance resilience. Four Wildfire Resilience Strategies Sitting just below the north star statement, we present four high-level strategies for wildfire resilience. We start with the three National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategies and then add a fourth strategy of Responsible Governance. By reinforcing one another, their sum effectiveness increases. Here, we describe the main message of each strategy: •

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Fire Adapted Communities (FAC). o Inspire and enable community action. o Move residents from awareness to real home mitigation, with a focus on the most at-risk neighborhoods. Build an integrated model of homeowner outreach through the life cycle of home hardening as well as emergency preparedness. Resilient Landscapes (RL): o Our deepest line of defense. o Reducing fuels is among the most effective ways to moderate wildfire behavior and increase the success of suppression. Concentrate fuel treatments where they make the biggest difference, expand crossboundary work between city and non-city managed lands, and better enable the city to act during burn windows. Safe and Effective Wildfire Response (WR): o Continuously strengthen life-safety protection. o Keep improving response, evacuation, and ignition prevention to align with our overarching vision of reducing risk to life and safety. Responsible Governance (RG): o Connect the work and catalyze action. o Coordinate implementation across departments, diversify funding, track progress, communicate with the community, and apply lessons learned to the next CWPP update.

137 Projects and 25 Programs (including 10 Tier 1 Programs) Beneath the four strategies sits a full inventory of 137 projects that are organized within 25 prioritized wildfire resilience programs. The project inventory and program summary sheet are included in the Attachments. Working with the 25 programs, staff gave a survey to wildfire experts on staff and across the West and used the results to select 10 Tier 1 programs that have the greatest opportunity to mitigate wildfire risk; these 10 were then moved forward for the development of measures. The Ten Tier 1 programs identified as the highest priority for implementation are: • • • • • • • • • •

FAC1. Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes & Property FAC2. Wildfire Resilient Building & Landscaping Standards FAC3. Community Emergency Preparedness RL1. Wildfire Fuels Management in the WUI RL2. Wildfire Fuel Breaks RL3. Prescribed Fire Program WR1. Wildfire Response WR2. Tactical Evacuation WR3. Ignition Prevention & Utility Hardening RG1. Wildfire Comms & Engagement

Geographic Prioritization: Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Risk Index In addition to prioritizing the “what” of wildfire resilience, staff also created an enhanced geographic prioritizing tool called the WUI Risk Index to prioritize the “where.” The WUI Risk Index provides the geographic foundation that translates program-level priorities into spatially targeted action. The WUI Risk Index first recognizes that Boulder’s western WUI is at higher risk than other areas of the WUI surrounding Boulder. It then divides the western WUI into 12 sections. The eastern boundary is set at Broadway, the western boundary extends 1,500 feet into the natural areas from the westernmost developed edge, and the northsouth section boundaries are defined by major roads and landscape features. Each section is rated into one of three risk classes: Highest, Very High, and High. These ratings will help staff concentrate priority work across the 10 Tier 1 programs over the next four years, directing more investment to the sections where it will have the greatest impact. At the August 27 study session, Council asked staff to review whether some sections rated High should instead be rated Very High. Staff completed that review and are confident in the current risk ratings based on the model inputs and their professional

judgement for the purposes of guiding prioritization. The attached methods document (Attachment C) describes the full technical approach behind the risk ratings, including the factors considered and how they were weighted, and is helpful for anyone wanting to understand how the ratings were developed. Staff remain open to further conversation with Council on this point as work continues. Since the August Study Session, staff have also developed a new interactive web map displaying section-level risk ratings alongside additional helpful layers, including buildings color-coded by ignition risk rating and relevant administrative boundaries. The web map is available to Council and the community at Wildland Urban Interface Risk Index (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/dc257ba36c3642d7b69520e7dc5bd03 d). Program Measures and Targets For the 10 Tier 1 programs, staff have developed a set of 14 measures with 2030 targets. The full set is presented in Table 1, with additional supporting information in Attachment B. Together, the measures create a picture of progress across three complementary areas of work: • • •

Reducing fuel loads on natural lands to prevent and slow wildfires, which better enable firefighters to contain fires before they reach the city; Helping homeowners minimize their property's vulnerability should a fire arrive; and Preparing residents for evacuations as an essential, last-resort safety measure.

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Each measure profile in Attachment B is structured around six elements o The Program Name in which the measure sits; o The Desired Outcomes the program is working toward; o The Measure and Target describing what will be tracked and by when; o The Aspiration representing the long-term goal beyond 2030; o What it would take to reach the aspiration; and o Definitions and Notes Four of the 10 programs carry two measures rather than one, reflecting complexity within those programs, typically multiple phases of the work, for a grand total of 14 measures.

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For easy reference, the measures are numbered 1-14 across the profiles. Each measure also has a 2-3 word “handle” such as “DHA” and “Home Hardening:”. The 14 measures are a mix of outcome measures, situational-awareness measures, and input or process measures, reflecting the genuine complexity of wildfire resilience as a topic. The time horizon for all targets is confirmed as the end of 2030, a four-year performance period spanning 2027 through 2030. The 2030 targets describe expected progress by aligning and prioritizing existing resources, which, importantly, already include substantial wildfire resilience investments, recent enhancements, and now a prioritized, targeted approach. In other words, these targets represent what we believe is achievable at current investment levels. Adding our aspirational goals to the program profiles (see attachments) reveals the gap between where our current targets land and where we truly want to be. Although these measures are in their final DRAFT form, staff welcome Council feedback as staff wraps up its internal analysis to finalize the measures.

Table 1. The 14 measures aligned with the 10 Tier 1 Priority Programs. Program FAC1. Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes & Property

FAC2. Wildfire Resilient Building & Landscaping Standards FAC3. Community Emergency Preparedness RL1. Wildfire Fuels Management in the WUI RL2. Wildfire Fuel Breaks

Measures • Measure 1. DHA: 55% of homes in the 12 WUI priority sections have received a Detailed Home Assessment and are therefore eligible for a WRAP grant by end of 2030. • Measure 2. Home Hardening: 20% of homes across in the 12 WUI priority sections are hardened to a standard that makes them eligible for Wildfire Prepared Home Essential designation by end of 2030. • Measure 3. Building Permit: Number of building permits in the priority WUI sections issued per year indicating compliance with applicable International Wildland Urban Interface Code requirements. • Measure 4. Evacuation Programming: 75% of homes across all 12 WUI priority

sections receive evacuation programming by the end of 2030.

• Measure 5. Fuels: 100% of city-owned acres in WUI natural areas in all 12 WUI

priority sections are treated to wildfire risk reduction prescription by the end of 2030. • Measure 6. Fuel Breaks: 70% of modeled "wildfire approach pathways" from the west encounter one or more landscape-scale fuel break (or natural disturbance functioning as a fuel break) in treated condition before reaching the 1,500-foot WUI fuel management zone adjacent to the 12 WUI priority sections, based on fire behavior modeling, by end of 2030.

RL3. Prescribed Fire Program WR1. Wildfire Response WR2. Tactical Evacuation

WR3. Ignition Prevention & Utility Hardening RG1. Wildfire Comms & Engagement

• Measure 7. Burn Planning. 50% of city owned land in priority WUI sections

covered by a current burn plan by end of 2030.

• Measure 8. Burn Performance: 50% of available "burn days" according to

approved burn plans are utilized through end of 2030. • Measure 9. Wildfire Suppression: 90% of wildland ignitions on city-managed and adjacent lands are contained under 1 acre through 2030. • Measure 10. Evacuation Planning. 100% of city evacuation polygons will feature current Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) assessments and complete polygon attribute documentation by the end of 2028. • Measure 11. Evacuation Performance: Average RSET time is 2.5 hours for the 12 WUI priority sections, validated through after-action reviews and maintained through 2030. • Measure 12. Ignitions: 10% reduction in the five-year rolling average of human-likely wildfire ignitions compared with the 2021–2025 baseline by end of 2030. • Measure 13. Utility Hardening: 20 miles of overhead utility lines undergrounded in and around Boulder by the end of 2030. • Measure 14. Communications: 55% of surveyed residents engaged in wildfire preparedness report that City of Boulder wildfire information, programs or engagement made them more likely to, or better informed to, take wildfire mitigation or risk-reduction action, with increased participation among residents in priority wildfire-risk areas through end of 2030.

Measure Tracking Framework The 14 measures described above, and more comprehensively in Attachment B, provide a framework for tracking implementation and progress over the four-year period from 2027 through the end of 2030. Most are intended to increase over time, while some seek to maintain an existing level of performance and one is a situational measure only. Accordingly, progress will be evaluated relative to the intent and target. Staff anticipates reporting progress on the measures annually. Each annual update would report the status of all 14 measures relative to their targets using the updated measures as well as a simple at-a-glance status framework, such as on track, needs attention, or off track. The status would be accompanied by a brief narrative for each measure describing accomplishments and any setbacks. The annual update would also provide important context regarding resources so that Council and community can see if investments are increasing the pace and scale of implementation. The annual update will allow an adaptive management approach, where any substantive adjustments to the measures or targets can be evaluated and transparently documented. The specific reporting format has not yet been determined and could include a written report, tables, a public-facing webpage or dashboard, or a combination of approaches.

Staff are still determining the best timing for our annual report out, but a spring timeframe may be ideal as it would ensure that previous year’s data remains relevant while giving Council enough runway for the following year's budget decisions.

Program Cost Estimates Staff estimated the current annual city investment for the 10 Tier 1 programs. These figures represent existing baseline investments. Costs include staff time, materials, equipment, contractor services, program administration, etc. The estimates are presented as ranges that should be understood as order-of-magnitude estimates. These estimates provide the foundation against which enhanced investment needs discussed below can be assessed. Table 2. Cost estimates for the 10 Tier 1 programs. Program

Current cost annually

Notes

FAC1. Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes & Property

$1,000,000 to $1,500,000

Detailed Home Assessments, WRAP grant monies, and WRAP administration.

FAC2. Wildfire Resilient Building & Landscaping Standards

$500,000 to $1,000,000

Permit review and inspections.

FAC3. Community Emergency Preparedness

$250,000 to $500,000

Workshops, materials, and preparedness meetings.

RL1. Wildfire Fuels Management in the WUI

$1,500,000 to $2,000,000

Fuels reduction through grazing, mowing, and forestry work.

RL2. Wildfire Fuel Breaks

$500,000 to $1,000,000

Forestry work and cross boundary coordination.

RL3. Prescribed Fire Program

$250,000 to $500,000

Burn plan development, burn boss capacity, and equipment.

WR1. Wildfire Response

$1,500,000 to $2,000,000

WR2. Tactical Evacuation

$50,000 to $250,000

Wildland firefighter training, equipment and operations. Training and polygon assessments. Costs would be substantially higher in an actual evacuation event.

WR3. Ignition Prevention & Utility Hardening

$500,000 to $1,000,000

Ranger patrol, fire prevention and awareness signage, prevention education and outreach, OSMP closure infrastructure, and Xcel coordination staff time. Utility hardening costs are largely Xcel’s responsibility under their wildfire mitigation plan.

RG1. Wildfire Comms & Engagement

$250,000 to $500,000

Events, Home Hardening Implementation Hub development and maintenance, newsletters, postcards, signs, etc.

Up to ~$10,250,000

Priority Enhancement Programs for 2027 At the August Study Session and again at the October 1 council meeting, Council expressed interest in better understanding where additional investments could produce meaningful results. Several enhancements and realignments are already incorporated in the 2027 budget, including, but not limited to, directing an additional $300k of Climate Fund specifically to wildfire resilience, increasing OSMP’s 2027 CIP investments for wildfire efforts by $560K from 2026 levels, an increase of $419,000 for the Power Reliability & Resilience Initiative, and repurposing an existing OSMP position to a new Fuels Management Program Manager. In addition, the wildfire team has identified four additional priority enhancement areas in 2027 that have the potential of achieving the most meaningful difference, based on evaluating what short-term actions we could take with enhanced resources, and what the estimated 2027 costs and revenue sources might be (Table 3). The four Program Areas that would be enhanced beyond the significant work that is already planned for in 2027 are: • • • •

FAC1. Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes and Property FAC3. Community Emergency Preparedness RL1. Wildfire Fuels Management in the WUI WR2. Tactical Evacuation

Potential additional 2027 revenues to support these wildfire resilience strategic enhancements include up to $600,000 from the Open Space Fund and up to $1.25M in

County, State, and Federal grants the city is or will be applying for. Grants being pursued include Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation (FRWRM) from the Colorado State Forest Service, the Wildfire Urban Interface Fire Resilience & Urban Canopy Enhancement grant through the Colorado State Forest Service, a Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grant from Boulder County, and a FEMA BRIC grant. Staff are also pursuing a Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) of up to $10M. If awarded, CWDG funds would be available starting in 2028, and the city would identify the approximate $660,000 in city match required for the award. In addition to potential new revenue and realigned funding, staff will ensure existing allocated funding and staff capacity aligns with these priorities. Table 3. 2027 Priority Enhancement Programs

Example Enhancement Actions

2027 Potential Additional Investment

2027 Applicable Funding Opportunities

2028+ Additional Applicable Funding Opportunities

Program

Why Now

FAC1. Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes & Property

Large gap between current state and aspiration target. Behavior change will take multi-year attention. Aligns with insurance risk scores coming out in Q4*. Enhancing work with HOAs.

• Expand capacity in providing DHAs • Expand WRAP grants • Assess the feasibility of a home hardening program for outreach, work prioritization, contractor coordination, low-cost financing options, etc. • Evaluate a neighborhood fire preparedness coordinator program

Up to ~$500,000

• Realign existing $1.8M 2027 Climate Tax Fund expenditures to enhancement program area • County and State Grants

Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG)

FAC3 Community Emergency Preparedness

Gaps in community evacuation training can now be informed by the WUI Risk Index to prioritize where to focus first.

• Expand the delivery of community preparedness events.

Up to $100,000

• Realign existing $1.8M 2027 Climate Tax Fund expenditures to enhancement program area • County and State Grants

CWDG

RL1. Wildfire Fuels Management in the WUI

Deepest defense. Prescriptions for WUI sections will be completed in the coming months. Numerous grant opportunities available now. Big gap to reach prescription targets on private land.

• Project management and implementation support. • Expand grazing, mowing, and forestry work. • Conduct more crossboundary outreach and fuels reduction on private WUI natural areas.

Up to $600,000

• County and State Grants (SFMG, FRWRM) • Open Space Fund

CWDG

WR2 Tactical Evacuation

Tactical evacuation is the highest stakes moment in a wildfire. Federal grant timing makes this the right moment to coverage gaps.

• Update siren system • Expand training and enhance analysis.

Up to $650,000

• Federal Grants

CWDG

Total 2027 Enhancement Need: Up to ~$1,850,000

Total 2027 Sources: Up to ~$1.85M: • Federal, State, and County Grants: ~$1.25M • Realigning existing $1.8M 2027 Climate Tax Fund allocations to these enhancement programs ● Open Space Fund: Up to $600k

CWDG: Up to $2M per year for 5 years beginning in 2028.

*Colorado’s new laws require insurers to provide policyholders with annual written risk score notices; home hardening and defensible space efforts may now result in mandatory insurance discounts or rate adjustments.

In identifying the four priority enhancement programs, considerations included the magnitude of the need, whether additional resources could translate into meaningful implementation progress, near-term readiness to scale, and alignment with potential and anticipated grant funding (Table 4).

Table 4. Criteria used to select Programs for evaluation for enhancement.

#

Criterion

Definition

1

Direct Life Safety Risk Reduction (North Star alignment)

Does it directly reduce risk to life safety?

2

Tier 1 Program Alignment

Aligns with a Tier 1 priority program. Multi-program alignment is a plus.

3

Measure Advancement

How much does it advance the program’s specific measure?

4

Geographic Priority (WUI Risk Index, Equity Index)

Concentrated in highest risk zones? Serves equity needs?

5

Urgency

Time-sensitive need? Narrow window of opportunity?

6

Readiness

Shovel-ready, can start within 6-12 months?

7

Cost/Value

Strong return on investment? Leverages other funding?

8

Expense Type

One-time (preferred) or recurring?

9

Risk Management

Implementation risks manageable?

Program enhancements beyond 2027 will be evaluated annually utilizing the criteria outlined in Table 4 and this evaluation will be conducted to align with the city's budget process and the council's Wildfire Ready 2030 updates. With the current availability and breadth of external grant opportunities now available, grants will continue to help drive future enhancements. Beyond grants, staff are also proactively exploring alternative financing mechanisms to complement existing revenue (see below). Long-Term Financing for Community Wildfire Resilience Wildfire risk is a long-term, community-wide challenge that will require sustained investment over many years. The question is therefore not simply how much additional funding can be identified in the city's budget, but what level of investment is necessary to achieve meaningful and measurable reductions in wildfire risk, which strategies provide the greatest risk reduction, and what financing framework can sustain those investments over time. If a materially higher level of investment in wildfire resilience is warranted, staff could evaluate alternative financial frameworks in addition to grant funding that distinguish between the desired scale of investment, the timing of expenditures, and the appropriate sources of funding. This would shift the city’s framing of wildfire resilience as a long-term community investment rather than relying primarily on annual operating budgets. Potential approaches include combining public funding with available grants and private or regional investment; exploring property-based financing and insurance incentives to support home-hardening and other risk-reduction measures; and evaluating long-term financing for eligible investments that provide benefits over many years. These options

could be used individually or in combination, depending on the investments involved, the City’s legal authority and debt capacity, potential impacts on its bond rating, and the availability of a sustainable repayment source. Staff intends to evaluate financing alternatives as part of the 2027 work plan and return with options for consideration, including their feasibility, trade-offs, and potential to support wildfire resilience investments over the long term. Home Hardening Hub, Supporting Wildfire Resilience Work Across Disciplines While the city's existing wildfire programs provide valuable Detailed Home Assessments, financial assistance and technical guidance, community members may still face challenges understanding where to begin to make their homes and property more wildfire resilient, which projects to prioritize and how to implement recommended improvements. The Hub is designed to help close this gap by providing a centralized, accessible and actionable resource for wildfire mitigation. The Hub represents an important advancement in the city's approach to wildfire communications and community resilience. Rather than focusing solely on increasing awareness, the Hub is designed to support informed decision-making and encourage tangible changes to homes and properties. The Hub brings together a variety of practical resources, including: •

• • • •

Home hardening and defensible space instructional videos that demonstrate mitigation techniques and help residents understand recommended improvements. Project prioritization and cost information to help residents identify high-impact mitigation actions across a range of budgets. Accessible, achievable mitigation opportunities, including smaller projects that residents can complete independently. Insurance guidance and additional resources to help homeowners navigate wildfire-related considerations. Community examples and success stories that demonstrate how wildfire mitigation can be accomplished locally.

The Hub is intended to serve residents regardless of whether they have completed a Detailed Home Assessment or participate in other city wildfire programs. Its resources will also support homeowners, renters and community members with varying levels of experience and financial capacity.

The Hub is an important tool for achieving the city's broader wildfire resilience objectives, particularly the goal of translating communications and engagement into community action. Its implementation directly supports FAC1, Wildfire Risk Reduction for Homes and Property, by connecting residents with resources that help them complete mitigation projects. It also supports RG1, Wildfire Communications and Engagement, by creating opportunities to evaluate whether city-provided information makes residents more informed or more likely to take wildfire risk-reduction action. The Home Hardening Implementation Hub will continue to evolve as part of the city's broader Wildfire Ready 2030 implementation, serving as a foundational public-facing resource for community wildfire resilience.

Anticipated Fiscal and Workplan Impacts As described in the August 2026 memo, the city currently makes a substantial annual investment in wildfire resilience. Staff's recent citywide cost assessment identified approximately $10–11 million in annual wildfire-related expenditures across ten city departments and staff are actively pursuing $10M - $12M in wildfire resilience grants for 2027 forward. This annual investment represents existing commitments and currently resourced programs. Meaningful increases in one area generally require trade-offs with other wildfire resilience activities or new resources. In the absence of new resources, the most impactful thing the city can do is to continue to direct existing investment toward the highest-risk places and highest-impact programs. If new investment becomes available, as staff is looking to achieve through the pursuit of new grant resources, for example, the Wildfire Ready 2030 prioritization framework produced here will help ensure it goes where it will do the most good, and that any associated trade-offs are understood before commitments are made.

Equity Analysis As described in the August 2026 memo, wildfire risk is not distributed evenly across Boulder, nor are residents equally positioned to take action to reduce their risk. Boulder's highest wildfire risk is concentrated along the Wildland Urban Interface, especially in the west, where fire can most easily spread from wildland into the built environment and threaten the city as a whole. Hardening these prioritized areas protects everyone, not just those who live there. This equity value is indirect but real.

Vulnerable and historically excluded populations, including lower income residents, renters, seniors, people with disabilities, and non-English speakers, are concentrated disproportionately outside the WUI, so they benefit from reduced citywide fire risk without needing to take urgent home hardening actions individually. The Wildfire Home Hardening Implementation Hub will be an accessible, multi-modal webspace with a variety of presentations and consideration of a range of budgets and work types. The Wildfire Mitigation Priorities Assessment, embeds equity considerations directly into the prioritization framework. The WUI Risk Index, which directs program resources toward highest-risk sections, is accompanied by explicit documentation of its geographic rationale and a demographic assessment of whether any groups are systematically under or over-served by the resulting resource allocation. Individual projects will be reviewed using the equity considerations as part of project-specific planning.

Climate, Resilience, and Sustainability Considerations As described in the August 2026 memo, wildfire resilience work requires prioritizing community safety and balancing ecosystem health. Most grazing, defensible space, prescribed burning, and forest thinning work has climate and sustainability impacts. As described in the City of Boulder's Resilience Strategy: "Boulder's natural hazards are tightly linked, necessitating a comprehensive and integrated approach to risk mitigation. Droughts stress the city's ecosystems, helping accelerate the damage of pests to forests, thereby increasing the fuel for wildfires, and consequently denuding slopes and increasing flash flooding risk. But this cycle itself is not linear; each event builds on another and sets the stage for even more complex interactions. Therefore, to address these interlinked hazards, activities and programs must be well coordinated, using a systemic approach to reduce multiple risks at the same time and prepare communities to handle disruptions of any kind" (2016, page 3). Task 1 supports the community-level behavior change needed to complement landscape-scale risk reduction, recognizing that resilience requires action from the individual parcel to the watershed. Task 2 represents the kind of integrated, crossdepartmental approach called for in the Resilience Strategy. The city regularly engages with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the state agency responsible for regulating utilities, to champion clean, renewable, and affordable energy. Through testimony, city staff represent Boulder's priorities, ensuring the community's needs shape state-level decisions. Most recently, city staff have been engaging with the PUC and Xcel Energy’s Wildfire Mitigation Plan and funding, an effort

that connects directly to the Power Resilience and Utility Coordination program area within the Council priority's program inventory. This memo includes information related to a variety of programs and projects within the city's Wildfire Ready space. Information related to climate, resilience, and sustainability considerations for each specific program or project can be provided upon request.

Community Engagement As described in the August 2026 memo, the 2026 Council Priority Project tasks have specific engagement considerations and approaches. Wildfire Home Hardening Implementation Hub The Wildfire Ready Hub’s purpose is to inform the community and drive action of mitigation efforts. The type of engagement that the Hub is focused on is within the inform area of engagement. Anyone can use the Hub, property owners, renters, people with or without a Detailed Home Assessment, and people within and outside of the city. The actionable steps that the Hub provides, while tailored to City of Boulder community members, incorporates best practices from the wildfire community at large and is therefore applicable to anyone wanting to make an impact. Creating the Hub itself includes community outreach and some engagement with a soft launch and opportunity for feedback from the community and other interested parties. This will be to make sure the Hub meets the needs of those it is made to serve. After official launch, the Hub will also continue to accept feedback so that changes can be made. Targeted outreach for the Hub will prioritize properties within the highest risk areas in the city as well as those who may face barriers to mitigating with the information we have provided now. Engagement, by way of informing, will happen through traditional media, social media, city newsletters, table pop-us, etc. Wildfire Mitigation Priorities Assessment The prioritization framework developed in Task 2 is designed to be transparent, understandable and explainable to the public. Staff will communicate that prioritization does not mean that lower-tier programs or lower-risk areas are unimportant; rather, it provides a transparent basis for sequencing work and directing limited resources toward the greatest opportunities for risk reduction. By producing a clear picture of where the city is focusing resources, why, and how progress will be measured, the project advances the collaborative approach the community called for during the 2023-2024 CWPP update process, which included four webinars, a project webpage and interactive story map, open house events, written public feedback opportunities, and a public survey with 271 respondents.

The pairwise prioritization survey that produced the Tier 1 program designations drew on input not only from the city staff serving on the Wildfire Resilience Team but also from 13 peer practitioners from western municipalities. The full set of finalized measures will be compiled into a public-facing dashboard covering all 10 Tier 1 programs, giving the community a consistent annual view of progress toward risk reduction in the highest-priority areas of the WUI. The measures will be reported through the Wildfire Ready platform. Program-level engagement Many of the constituent programs within this project's inventory have their own engagement processes. Examples include the WRAP grant program, which conducts targeted outreach to WUI homeowners; the Detailed Home Assessment program, which engages homeowners directly through neighborhood-level outreach and preparedness events; the Community Emergency Preparedness program, which offered workshops to more than 330 participants in 2025; and the Wildfire Ready platform, which provides ongoing public access to wildfire risk information, program updates, and resilience resources. As Tier 1 programs are implemented engagement at the program and project level will continue. Boards and Commissions The Open Space Board of Trustees has engaged with wildfire resilience topics at 15 meetings since 2023, including a July 2026 update on the Wildfire Resilience Council Priority Project specifically: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Feb 2023: Update on Wildland Fire Resilience Programs Nov 2023: Wildland Fire Resilience Program Update: CWPP and Strategic Wildfire Mitigation Enhancements Sep 2023 Retreat: Wildland-Urban Interface Land Management and Fire Mitigation Discussion May 2024: Wildfire Resilient Landscapes: Update on WUI Fuels Management Jun 2024 Written Information: CWPP; OSMP Disaster Response Team Aug 2024: Wildfire Resilient Landscapes: CWPP Implementation Update Oct 2024 Retreat: Perimeter Mowing Program along Bluebell Road Dec 2024: OSBT Climate Action Update Mar 2025: Fuels Management Update May 2025 Field Trip: Shanahan Ridge Tall Oatgrass Fuels Management Jun 2025: CWPP Implementation Update (with BFR Chiefs) Jul 2025: OSMP Wildfire Prevention Initiative

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Feb 2026: Prescribed Fire in Grasslands Research with Dr. Katie Suding, CU Boulder Apr 2026: Preventative Hazard Closures and WUI Fuels Management Jul 2026: Update on Wildfire Resilience Council Priority Project

Next Steps for Staff and City Council Following the October 22 study session, staff will finalize the Wildfire Ready 2030 framework to have it ready for the 2027–2030 implementation period. Work already underway will continue yet will now be informed, concentrated and aligned by the geographic priorities and measures described here. As staff develops annual workplans, the Wildfire Ready 2030 framework will be used to translate the priority programs, WUI risk index, and measures into sequenced actions, and connect with existing and potential additional resources via grants. Implementation will include advancing FAC1 homeowner assistance tools, including further enhancing the Home Hardening Implementation Hub based on community feedback and use. While the Hub will be a valuable asset for the implementation of the FAC1 measure, the hub exists to serve each of the national cohesive strategies and guides outreach and information related to all city wildfire information. Staff anticipates returning to Council in spring 2027 for a wildfire resilience update. That update is expected to introduce details on the reporting approach that will be used to track progress over time. It will also provide updated information regarding the priority enhancement programs and the grant applications and awards. Thus, the spring 2027 update will serve as the first major implementation checkpoint for the four-year framework, bringing together performance reporting and resource planning and establishing the foundation for subsequent annual progress updates through 2030.

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Attachments Attachment A – Wildfire Resilience Program Summary Sheet Attachment B – Wildfire Resilience Measures Attachment C – WUI Risk Index Methods Attachment D - Wildfire Resilience Project List