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Protect Your Home with a Free Wildfire Mitigation Assessment

Living in Crystal Lakes means breathtaking mountain views, fresh alpine air, and the ever-present risk of wildfire. The good news? You can take action now to protect your home before fire season starts.

Crystal Lakes Fire Protection District offers free wildfire mitigation assessments to help you identify ways to reduce your risk. Our trained assessors will evaluate your property and provide practical, science-backed recommendations to improve your home’s defensible space.

Why Mitigation Matters

Wildfires are unpredictable, but one thing is certain—homes that have been properly mitigated stand a much better chance of surviving a fire. Check out the short video below from the National Fire Protection Association to see a mitigation project in action.

FirewiseHowToPrepareYourHomeForWildfires.pdf

 

For a dramatic example of why mitigation works, watch this real-life footage of a home surrounded by flames. Thanks to proper mitigation, the house survived, even though a person standing on the deck would not have.

Seven Things You Should Know About Fire Mitigation

  1. The factors that most affect the survivability of a structure are the structure itself and the 100 feet around it.
     
  2. Vacant lots also benefit from mitigation.  The trees on your lot are more likely to survive a fire if you have mitigated to lessen fire intensity.  Mitigation can make the difference between coming through a wildfire with a damaged, but still wooded lot and being left with a barren moonscape.
     
  3. It is not necessary to clear-cut around your house to improve its resistance to wildfire.  Mitigate to keep flames from direct contact with your house and to keep high radiant heat (burning trees) at a distance of at least thirty feet.  You can do this by keeping tree canopies at least ten feet apart and limbing trees up at least ten feet.
     
  4. More structures are lost to low-intensity (ground) fires than high-intensity (crowning) fires.  The embers and ground fires that most often destroy houses are things you can easily mitigate against.
     
  5. One of the most important things you can do to protect your home is clean your gutters.  Look for and remove dead leaf- and needle-litter from wherever it accumulates around your house -- it provides kindling for embers and is instrumental in destroying structures during a wildfire.
     
  6. There are only two forces that can truly stop or turn aside a large wildfire: a change in the weather and the mitigation of the forest in the fire's path.  Your efforts make a difference.
     
  7. Members of the Crystal Lakes Volunteer Fire Department will do property assessments to assist you in making effective fire mitigation decisions on your property.  Use the form below to request your assessment.

Request Your Free Fire Mitigation Assessment

$2,500 Tax Credit for Property Mitigation 

Individuals, estates and trusts may claim a subtraction on their Colorado income tax return for certain costs incurred in performing wildfire mitigation measures on their property in a wildland-urban interface area within Colorado. Download this PDF for more information.

Create a Defensible Space Around Your Home! 

A defensible space is an area, either man-made or natural, where the vegetation is modified and maintained to slow the rate and intensity of an advancing wildfire.  Creating a defensible space also includes taking steps to protect your home from the ember storm that comes with a wildfire. LEARN MORE

CLVFD Assessment Checklist.pdfDefensibleSpace1.pdf
Follow These Checklists to Prepare Your Home for Wildfire 

Take these practical steps provided by the Colorado State Forest Service to increase the likelihood your home survives a wildfire by addressing the home ignition zone, which is the home itself and the area around it. This will minimize the ability of your home to ignite during a wildfire, in part by reducing or eliminating nearby fuels.

Six Things You Can Do to Make Your House Ember-Safe 

Embers coming in contact with flammable materials is the major reason why homes are destroyed during wildfires.  Here are six things you can do to reduce your house's exposure to this threat.

  1. Sweep your walkways, patios and decks regularly to remove leaves, needles and other combustible materials that may gather against your house. 
  2. Remove vegetative debris (leaves, pine needles, twigs) from your gutters and roof.
  3. Remove combustible materials from under your deck and move your firewood to a place at least thirty feet from your house.
  4. Store your deck furniture, children’s toys and other combustible items inside if a wildfire threatens. 
  5. Caulk any openings along the top or bottom of wall siding or around windows where gaps could allow embers to enter your home.
  6. Screen your vents under eves and at the foundation.  Vents are vulnerable entry points for embers and flames.  Cover them with 1/8 mesh metal screens.  Finer mesh will require more maintenance to keep free of debris.  Remember to keep air flowing freely to manage moisture in attic or under your house.