Matters Memo

City of Boulder City Council Agenda Item Meeting Date: September 25, 2025 Agenda Title Wildfire Ready – Citywide Wildfire Resilience Update

Staff Contact     

Pam Davis, Assistant City Manager Mike Calderazzo, Fire Chief, Boulder Fire Rescue (BFR) Danielle McNutt, Community Risk Reduction Sr. Program Manager, BFR Paul Dennison, Wildland Fire Sr. Program Manager, Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Jamie Barker, Public Information Officer, Communications and Engagement

Executive Summary The purpose of this item is to provide the City Council with specific information related to 2025 completed and currently ongoing wildfire resilience work as well as a high-level look at upcoming wildfire resilience work for the remainder of 2025. The City of Boulder continues to make significant progress in advancing wildfire resilience through the implementation of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan and funding from the Climate Tax approved by voters in 2022. In 2025, the city approved new building standards for the WUI, expanded financial support to homeowners, treated hundreds of acres of forest and grassland, advanced prescribed fire projects, and strengthened wildfire response capabilities. Together, these efforts reduce risks to life, property, and critical infrastructure while enhancing ecosystem resilience.

As shown in Attachment A: Action Areas for CWPP Implementation, the wildfire resilience work that has been identified is a shared responsibility between city and community and will happen across a variety of disciplines. This attachment provides a more detailed look at the project topics identified for each National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy goal as well as indicates 2025 goals. This memo highlights major successes in 2025 and outlines main projects currently ongoing that are organized around the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy goals:   

Fire Adapted Communities Resilient Landscapes Safe and Effective Response

Questions for Council 1. Does council have questions on the city’s Wildfire Ready initiatives? 2. Of the successes highlighted in 2025, which resonate most with council members as examples the community should hear more about? 3. What additional information or resources can we provide council members that would help you be prepared to answer community questions about the city’s wildfire work, in order to champion it?

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  

 

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.

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. In addition to the 90 recommendations from the CWPP, staff has constructed a comprehensive inventory of all projects with direct or indirect connections to wildfire resilience.

City Council History    

  

April 2022: Council Study Session  Wildfire Resilience Presentation February 2023: Wildland Fire Resilience Information Packet to City Council  02.16.23 City Council Agenda May 2024: Council Study Session  Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) Final Draft Discussion December 2024 Council Study Session: Wildfire Hardening Policy and Regulation Updates & Waterwise Landscaping Policies and Regulation Updates  Attachment B - Summary of Current City Wildfire Mitigation Work  12.12.24 Agenda May 2025: City Council Meeting  Wildland Urban Interface Code Adoption July 2025: City Council Study Session  Waterwise Landscaping September 2025: City Council Meeting  First Reading, Waterwise Landscaping

Analysis The City of Boulder and Boulder County have always lived with the reality of wildfire. Fire has always been part of the natural rhythm of this landscape, shaping the ecosystem, clearing undergrowth, and keeping the land healthy. This natural force has become a threat to public safety as more people live, work, and build in this fire adapted landscape. In Boulder, wildfire is not a question of if another fire will occur, but when, meaning becoming a fire adapted community is all the more important. Because Boulder’s landscape is adapted to fire, Boulder’s communities must adapt as well. That means becoming better prepared, more resilient, and more aware of the shared responsibility that Wildfire Ready initiatives require. The city has made wildfire resilience a priority, investing in projects and programs that reduce risk, while also working alongside community members. Community members play a critical role in this

effort, neighbors supporting neighbors, households taking action, and the city and property owners working together to prepare for the next fire. The urgency of this work was brought into focus in December 2021 during the Marshall Fire. The fire burned nearly 1,600 acres, forced more than 30,000 people to evacuate, and destroyed over 1,000 homes and 30 commercial buildings. Strategic and coordinated mitigation helps to balance the role that fire plays in Boulder’s unique and beautiful natural space while preventing devastation to the community. We have a valuable opportunity to shape a new generation of wildfire resilience in our community. 2025 Highlights Resilient Landscapes: This, in action, means restoring landscapes so that they are resilient to fire-related disturbance and to address fuels and fire risk to our communities while prioritizing the healthy ecosystems of Boulder’s urban and wildland forests, grasslands, and agricultural areas 





Forest Health & Fuel Reduction: o Thinned forests in high-risk areas such as Shanahan Ridge, Sanitas Valley, Flagstaff Road, and Bison Drive–Kossler, adding to more than 2,500 acres of forest management completed since adoption of the Forest Ecosystem Management Plan. o Expanded perimeter mowing along the city’s western boundary to reduce fuels directly adjacent to homes. This perimeter mowing created 4 miles of 30-foot buffer strips in critical areas. o Implemented targeted cattle grazing on 500+ acres to control tall oatgrass, an invasive species, and reducing hazardous fuel loads in high-risk areas. This ongoing treatment mitigated fire behavior and helped firefighters contain the 2022 NCAR Fire. o Introduced 50 acres of pilot targeted grazing in high-risk areas adjacent to communities to evaluate targeted grazing with wildfire risk reduction as the primary objective. ▪ Watch this video about our cattle grazing program that we produced and shared with our community in August. Prescribed Fire: o Completed 5+ controlled agricultural ditch burns covering 6.5 miles. o Advanced planning for large-scale prescribed burns: 2,000 acres at Flatiron Vista and nearly 3,000 acres along South Boulder Creek. o Testified before the Legislative Wildfire Matters Committee to improve prescribed fire flexibility statewide. Cross-Boundary Projects:



o Partnered with neighbors in Wonderland Lake communities and the Sans Souci Mobile Home Park in pilot efforts to pair landscape fuel treatments with home hardening, unifying these equally important and complementary strategies, and implementing them as single projects. ▪ The Wonderland Lake Cross-Boundary Project was recently awarded $200,000 from the Boulder County Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grant Program. Funding Expansion: Climate Tax investments increased forestry crews, grazing projects, and fuels management speed across OSMP and Utilities lands.

Fire-Adapted Communities: This, in action, means that human populations and infrastructure can withstand wildfire without loss of life and property. 











Detailed Home Assessments: Completed 400+ Detailed Home Assessments (DHAs) with 115 more underway this fall. 85% were in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) which is our targeted DHA area. Direct Financial Help: The Wildfire Resilience Assistance Program distributed $73,000+ in homeowner grants, doubling the maximum award from $1,000 to $2,000 to support home hardening and vegetation management. o 2025 WRAP data so far: 124 applications Updated and New WUI Code: Expanded WUI boundary and implemented stronger fire-resistant construction codes effective August 1, 2025. Learn more about the updated WUI code on the city's website. Infrastructure Protection (Electric Utility): Secured commitments for accelerated infrastructure hardening and undergrounding for 5 feeders serving the Boulder community and Boulder critical infrastructure to mitigate community impacts from future wildfire-related power outages, both reducing the risk of outage to the community and mitigating the need for a multi-million-dollar upgrade to back up the city’s wastewater treatment plant Community Outreach: The city is currently in production of a homeowner retrofit video series (with CSFS grant support), updated wildfire preparedness guides in multiple languages, hosted Wildfire Preparedness Days in WUI neighborhoods, launched Wildfire Ready webpage and Wildfire Ready eNewsletter (Anchor Point). Community Preparedness Education: Have had over 330 participants in disaster preparedness workshops in 2025 that focused on emergency alerts, personal risk assessment, and evacuation preparedness, and an additional 240 contacts at outreach events. Have also partnered with Aftersight Radio Station, which supports blind and low vision community members, on podcasts with a disaster preparedness focus.



Language Access: Preparedness education documents have been translated in 5 languages (including Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Russian)

Safe & Effective Fire Response: This, in action, looks like all jurisdictions participating in making and implementing safe, effective, efficient risk-based wildfire management decisions. 









Training & Staffing: o All Boulder Fire-Rescue firefighters trained to National Wildfire Coordinating Group standards; each receives 40 hours of wildland-specific training. o BFR’s Wildland Division provided more than 1,600 hours of training for wildland firefighters this year (which includes crew from OSMP and BFR). Equipment & Technology: o Added a new wildfire brush truck apparatus to improve off-road response capacity. o Upgraded fire weather and fuel monitoring systems to support faster and smarter upstaffing decisions. Prevention & Enforcement: o Closed Flagstaff Road and other high-risk areas during holidays and increased enforcement of fire bans, smoking restrictions, and curfews. o Participating in AlertWEST wildfire detection camera program across strategic locations in partnership with Boulder County. o Working with Xcel Energy in the deployment of AI cameras to support early detection. Preparedness Planning: o Expanded Structure Protection Guides along the city’s WUI to aid incident commanders. o Improved ingress/egress routes along Chapman Drive and Flagstaff Road for faster evacuations. o Strengthened coordination through the Boulder Valley Fire Consortium, advancing closest-unit dispatch planning for faster, more seamless wildfire response. o Ensured Xcel’s implementation of new tools and advance notification requirements to support the community during future Public Safety Power Shutoff events, including improved outage maps, and establishing required timelines for advance notice and enhanced coordination with Boulder’s Office of Disaster Management and operators of critical infrastructure (water, wastewater, transportation, hospital, etc). Evacuation Planning



o Developed pre incident evacuation zones of priority areas of the city for rapid evacuation alerting of the community. This considers the following decision support points: (1) traffic control points, (2) critical evacuation sites, (3) defend in place locations, (4) primary evacuation routes, (5) arrival points and (6) personnel requirements to staff traffic control points and complete door-to-door evacuations. A required safe evacuation time (RSET) has been assessed based on this data – allowing emergency responders to more efficiently evacuate community members. Urban Conflagration Plan o In 2025 the City of Boulder completed its first Urban Conflagration Plan identifying critical areas; (1) fuel management and fire reduction zones, (2) effective fire suppression and response, (3) incident management during conflagrations and (4) critical fire flow and water distribution grid isolation. o Tabletop Exercise: The Urban Conflagration Plan was stress tested using a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary tabletop exercise on May 20, 2025. The plan did withstand the impacts designed in the exercise and participant actions met exercise objectives.

Council and community can always learn about our current projects by visiting bouldercolorado.gov/WildfireReady.

Anticipated Fiscal and Workplan Impacts This memo includes information related to a variety of programs and projects within the city’s Wildfire Ready space. Each program and project has its own budget considerations, but much of the Wildfire Ready budget comes from the Climate Tax. On November 8, 2022, Boulder voters approved the Climate Tax (ballot measures 2A and 2B) that supports enhanced climate initiatives and actions in the community. Of the $4.27 million in increased appropriation in the Climate Tax Fund, a total of $1.5 million will fund enhanced wildfire resilience efforts. Within the online publication of the 2026 Recommended Budget, the wildfire resilience set-aside from the Climate Tax is disbursed across work by the Finance, Fire-Rescue, and Climate Initiatives departments. For 2026 this total is slightly higher than the $1.5 million set aside and is funded at $1.56M. In addition to the $1.56M from the Climate Tax, the Open Space Fund will be contributing approximately $550K to fund 47% of the Fire-Rescue Wildland Unit that was previously fully funded by the General Fund, bringing the total to $2.1M. The overall total of wildfire resilience spending citywide is considerably higher than $2.1M on an annual basis and the city is currently performing a review within each of the eight departments that support wildfire resiliency efforts to better quantify that total. Two

departments have conducted that review. So far for 2025, Open Space and Mountain Parks has identified $3.8M and Fire-Rescue has identified $2.6M of support for wildfire resiliency efforts.

Equity Analysis This memo includes information related to a variety of programs and projects within the city’s Wildfire Ready space. Each program and project has its own equity impacts and considerations that are regularly assessed as programs/projects continue. Wildfire can impact the Boulder community at any level – with the biggest threat of wildfire starting (and spreading) along our wildland urban interface. It is for this reason that wildfire resilience must start in the city’s highest risk areas, hardening these areas mitigates the risk of wildfire spreading to other parts of the city. While high risk areas of the city may also be areas of higher property value, mitigation in these spaces improves wildfire risk for all community members. One key example of the city’s focus on equity is The Wildfire Resilience Assistance Program, now in its second year. It provides funding to property owners who live in the WUI and who have completed a detailed home assessment (DHA) to identify much needed wildfire resilience improvements. The Wildfire Resilience Assistance Program (WRAP) was developed with the city’s Racial Equity Instrument at its core. Staff used the instrument to anticipate barriers and design strategies that make the program more accessible and equitable. Through this process, WRAP incorporated multiple approaches: offering both rebate and customized payment options to reduce cost barriers; coordinating translation support for nonEnglish speakers; planning in-person assistance for older adults and manufactured home residents; targeting outreach to absentee landlords and high-risk properties; and exploring alternatives to a first-come, first-served model to give more residents time to apply. The program also dedicated funds to manufactured home communities, a priority identified through the equity tool and community connector feedback. All Wildfire Ready work is shaped by the city’s Racial Equity Plan. The plan is a living road map that guides city government through the process of prioritizing goals, specifying details and assigning resources to achieve equitable change.

Climate, Resilience, and Sustainability Considerations Wildfire resilience work requires prioritizing community safety and balancing ecosystem health where we are able. Most grazing, defensible space, prescribed burn, forest thinning work has climate and sustainability impacts. The Wildfire Team’s goal is to work cross-departmentally to approach the lives of our community members, our pollinators, and our open space with care.

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). Further, the city regularly engages with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), 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. 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 for each specific project can be provided upon request.

Community Engagement Using the Engagement Strategic Framework as a guide, multiple methods of engagement have been used, and continue to be, with Wildfire Ready initiatives. 



Inform: To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding a problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions. o Bouldercolorado.gov/wildfireready - the central website location for all wildfire information from the city. o Anchor Point – quarterly newsletter dedicated to wildfire resilience programs and information. o Regular social media campaigns and information. o Engagement with traditional media to increase information and education about Boulder’s Wildfire Ready work. Involve: To work directly with the public throughout a process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered. o Neighborhood emergency preparedness meetings partnering between Community Risk Reduction and the Office of Disaster Management o What’s Up Boulder Collaborative Booth – provided a single space with information, education, and subject matter experts from across the city for the public to interact with.





Involve and Collaborate: To work directly with the public throughout a process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered and to partner with the public in each aspect of the decision. o From 2023-2024, the city led an initiative to update the CWPP. This initiative included community sessions for input and feedback as well as the cooperation of multiple city departments and regional partners. Community members can expect processes like this in the future as wildfire resilience strategy is ever changing and Boulder wants to remain on the forefront of risk mitigation. o Wildland Urban Interface Code Adoption 2025 - City Council recently adopted the 2024 IWUIC with local amendments. Throughout this process the community was informed about important discussion dates via newsletters, social media, and postcards, and had a multiple-week window to engage through the BeHeardBoulder platform and community events. Two city boards and commissions regularly interface with wildfire resilience issues: o Planning and Development o Open Space Board of Trustees

Next Steps for City Council While there are no upcoming council decision points in the near term, we encourage council to continue to champion this work.

Digital Accessibility The City of Boulder is committed to digital accessibility. Some content may not be fully accessible due to technical limitations or issues. For alternate formats or accommodations, please visit Accessibility | City of Boulder or contact accessibility@bouldercolorado.gov.

Attachments 

Attachment A: Action Areas for CWPP Implementation