Town of Benne Town Hall closed Monday, February 1, 2021, to
Thursday, February 4, 2021.
If you need Town services, please call (303)644-3249 or visit
towno enne .colorado.gov.
By Michael Elizabeth Sakas, CPR News
When the East Troublesome fire hurtled towards Matthew Reed-Tolonen’s Grand Lake home last October, he made sure to lock up his family’s fireproof safes before they evacuated.
“That was like the marriage license, birth certificates, all that kind of stuff,” Reed-Tolonen said. “I thought I was good. I was like, ‘All right, it’s closed.’ And this is an expensive safe, we’re good. It didn’t do anything, just ash.”
Hundreds of Colorado homeowners now face the tough choice of whether or not to rebuild after last year’s historic wildfires ripped through mountain communities like Grand Lake. For Reed-Tolonen, rebuilding was never a question. He and his wife grew up in the area, and they got engaged on the empty lot where their mountain home would eventually be.
“I’m kind of bummed out that it’s a question for so many people,” Reed-Tolonen said. “I get people are nervous because they had their dream home for so many years and it’s gone. But maybe that’s why it’s so much easier for us. We just got into ours.”
Their home stood for less than a year.
To better prepare their new home for a future disaster, as climate change fuels more fires that are bigger and more destructive, Reed-Tolonen said he’ll likely keep trees further away from the structure. He’ll also rebuild with metal wainscoting four-feet up on the house’s exterior.
“Other than that, it’s going to be wood siding again,” he said.
There are other siding materials that are more resistant to wildfire like brick, stucco and cement-fiber.
But unlike in California, there are no statewide laws in Colorado that require people like Reed-Tolonen to build with certain materials or mandate how they manage their land.
Thoughtful changes to both can greatly increase the chances of a home surviving a wildfire, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
“There are many layers of difficulty with doing something like that,” said Lisa Dale, a lecturer at Columbia University in the sustainable development program.
A task force learned that in a local-control state, it’s hard to pass statewide laws — even when they would save homes.
Dale was part of a 2013 Colorado task force that looked at the best ways to protect people and property after one of the state’s most destructive wildfire seasons ever. The previous year, six people were killed, more than 640 structures were destroyed and more than 30,000 people were forced to evacuate.
The group’s final report suggested the state create a model ordinance for homes built in areas at risk for wildfire. That mandate could include building codes since the use of fire-resistant building material has been found to be one of the most effective measures at preventing a home from burning down. It could also establish defensible space requirements, which would specify how the area around a home is landscaped and maintained.
California has laws for both. The state adopted a mandatory building code for new homes built in wildfire-prone areas in 2008, and recent fires suggest that the change is likely keeping homes from burning down.
The Colorado task force recommended that either the wildfire code be mandated for areas at risk for wildfire by the state or that the model ordinance would be something local governments could adopt.
“We had people in the group from the insurance industry, from the building industry, from conservation groups. And we really thought, well if we can come to some agreement within the group, then surely that agreement will also be reflected out there in the real world,” Dale said.
Eight years and numerous disastrous wildfires later, no model ordinance exists. The effort died at the State Capitol. Dale said she’s not surprised.
“Those elected officials were also being contacted by lobbyists, who represented some of those industries that were really concerned about these recommendations,” Dale said. “Legislators would have had to sort of override some of those pieces of feedback that they were getting from their constituents.”
A 2014 committee tasked with proposing wildfire legislation rejected a bill that would have mandated a building code for areas threatened by wildfire.
Democratic State Rep. Tony Exum Sr. of Colorado Springs was part of the group. He said they did get pushback from industry representatives on points like construction costs to homeowners and developers, who wanted to see those decisions kept to a local level.
“We’re a local-control state,” Exum said. “It’s tough for us to create laws that override the local control in those areas.”
A 2020 report from NPR showed that home builders groups felt that local governments should determine their own codes and rely on educating homeowners about wildfire preparation through outreach.
“I think we question the efficacy of a statewide [wildland-urban interface] code, because we support local codes,” Ted Leighty, CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders, told NPR. “We believed, and still do, that codes are best developed, implemented and enforced by local governments. Each local area has unique issues and circumstances and geography.”
What can a town or city do if homeowners want to take the risk and keep the trees in their yard?
Some places, like Boulder and Colorado Springs, have adopted laws on how new homes should be built in wildfire areas. In 2009 the Breckenridge town council tried to address fire hazards to existing properties with an ordinance that required residents to create a defensible space around their home. That meant cutting down some trees.
Breckenridge Mayor Pro Tem and town council member Jeffery Bergeron remembers the heated community meetings. Residents were worried about “draconian government overreach,” and they didn’t want to cut down their “prized bristlecone pines,” Bergeron said.
“It was like going to a knife fight with a Q-tip,” Bergeron said.
Bergeron said the backlash is a prime example of why the state should take the lead on wildfire mitigation laws. Breckenridge residents were angry. Erick Buck, a local real estate broker, started a petition that collected enough signatures to force the town to kill the ordinance.
“If the local people decide that that’s not the way they want to address the issue, then you know, that really is up to them,” Buck said.
After his petition killed the mandate, Buck sat on a committee to help the town figure out how to encourage residents to voluntarily clear fire hazards around their property. Eventually, Buck cut down trees on his property and encouraged his neighborhood group to do the same.
Buck said his community’s voluntary efforts show that codes and mandates aren’t the right way to address wildfire mitigation on private property.
“If my home is going to burn down and I’m willing to take that risk because I want to have trees in my yard, that’s really up to the individual owner to make that decision, not the town to tell them,” Buck said.
In Grand County, where Matthew Reed-Tolonen is rebuilding his home, county commissioner Richard Cimino said they would appreciate it if the state came out with a model wildfire code. But even if that happened, Cimino said the county would promote its guidance as voluntary and likely wouldn’t make any of it mandatory.
On 20-year anniversary, Forest Service Roads Rule remains an unrealized opportunity
Missoula, MT – January marks the 20-year anniversary of a Forest Service rule meant to rein in the agency’s vast, unsustainable network of roads—mostly dirt, and the serious environmental damage they cause. Commonly referred to as the “Roads Rule,” its purpose is to reduce, or rightsize, the sprawling forest road system— a legacy of logging, grazing, mining and poorly-managed motorized recreation. After two decades, progress has been anemic overall, and for most of the 193 million acres managed by the Forest Service, the agency has yet to identify a minimum road system that it can afford to maintain and that is environmentally sustainable. Now is the time to make good on the Roads Rule.
When the Forest Service first enacted the Roads Rule, there were over 384,000 miles of roads resulting in serious harm to fish and wildlife. Today, 20 years later, there are still over 370,000 miles—representing just a 3.6 percent decrease in miles. And the lack of agency funding leaves 90% of these miles of road unmaintained. The intent of the Roads Rule was to move the forest road system toward a more “sustainable” condition, one that balanced ecological, economic, and social needs. Toward this end, the Forest Service made some progress—fixing over 1,000 road/stream crossings to reconnect fish habitat, and removing 900 miles of road in a single year. In addition, until 2018 new road construction had been on a downward trajectory. Yet, overall achieving a road system that is both environmentally sustainable and affordable has languished. The persistent lack of funding, coupled with climate change, puts that goal further out of reach. In addition, due to the Forest Service’s continued emphasis on wildfire suppression and timber production, the agency is now building more roads, even as it removes others.
“Altogether, the Roads Rule is a policy that has yet to be realized or meaningfully implemented,” said Sarah McMillan, Conservation Director at WildEarth Guardians. “After 20 years the Forest Service road system is still as unwieldy as ever, still choking streams with sediment, and still fragmenting habitat that wildlife need to thrive. In the midst of the dual climate and extinction crises, we ask the incoming Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack to implement the Roads Rule to remove roads, improve wildlife habitat, and improve water quality.”
“Roads chop up wildlife habitat on a landscape scale, to the great detriment of grizzly bears, spotted owls, wolves, elk, and many other species,” said WildEarth Guardians’ Chris Krupp “If wildlife are to have any chance to thrive and adapt to climate change, the Forest Service must greatly step up removing roads, not replacing them or building more.”
“The Forest Service has a backlog of over $3 billion of road-related deferred maintenance leading to hard choices about which roads don’t get fixed each year,” said Marlies Wierenga, with WildEarth Guardians. “This Russian roulette approach means road failures deliver a big punch – blocking access for recreationists, dumping sediment into salmon and bull trout streams, and costing exponentially more to fix in the long run.”
“Due to its myopic pursuit of trying to stop climate-driven wildfires across vast landscapes, the Forest Service believes most every road is necessary to reach remote areas for logging and fire suppression,” said Adam Rissien with WildEarth Guardians. “The agency’s hubris ignores research showing people cause a vast majority of wildfires, and that roads provide the access for many of those ignitions.”
Background: While extractive industry always demanded road access across national forest lands, construction rose exponentially after World War II. Congress supported the logging industry by dedicating millions of taxpayer dollars to the Forest Service to construct forest roads everywhere and anywhere; through floodplains, up river valleys, along steep hillsides and over mountain tops. The desire to cut trees was the primary driver for road construction with little thought or planning as to the impacts from the roads.
By the late 1990’s, as timber markets changed, the Forest Service began to acknowledge the growing body of evidence illustrating the harmful consequences from its poorly located, constructed, and managed forest road system. At the same time, the billions of dollars in Congressional appropriations that largely paid for building the road system were decreasing at a rapid pace. Conservation groups, fueled by a groundswell of public support, pushed the agency to change. As a result, in 1998 the Forest Service initiated a process to overhaul its road management policies. The multi-year effort resulted in the landmark 2001 Roadless Rule, that most people are familiar with, protecting millions of acres of national forests from logging and road building. At the same time, then Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck signed the Road Management Strategy Rule and Policy that went into effect on January 12, 2001, otherwise known as the “Roads Rule.”
The “Roads Rule” was developed to deal with the vastly oversized and harmful forest road system. It required the Forest Service “to set a standard that each forest identify the minimum road system required to balance access objectives with ecosystem health goals; and to use a science-based roads analysis to identify the road network needed to serve the public and land administrators.” The new Roads Rule also required the Forest Service to identify unneeded roads for decommissioning, or other uses, and to prioritize those that pose the greatest risk to public safety or environmental quality. The Roads Rule’s intent was to move the forest road system toward a more “sustainable” condition, one that balanced ecological, economic, and social needs.
Since its emergence, the field of road ecology has exposed the magnitude and breadth of ecological impacts attributable to forest roads. We now understand that transportation infrastructure harms aquatic and terrestrial environments at multiple scales. In general, the more roads and motorized trails, the greater the impacts. The construction, presence and use of forest roads can dramatically change how entire watersheds function, which leads to reductions in both quantity and quality of aquatic habitat. Roads produce both chronic and catastrophic erosion and sediment. Every time it rains, sediment from road surfaces washes into streams. Roads also harm wildlife in a number of ways, including: direct mortality (poaching, hunting/trapping), changes in movement and habitat-use patterns (disturbance/avoidance), as well as indirect impacts including altering adjacent habitat and interference with predator/prey relationships. Some of these impacts result from the road itself, and some result from the uses on and around the roads (access). Ultimately, studies show that roads reduce the abundance, diversity, and distribution of several wildlife species. For more information, see WildEarth Guardians special report, “The Environmental Consequences of Forest Roads and Achieving a Sustainable Road System, March 2020.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment launched a new call center for the public to ask questions specifically about the COVID-19 vaccine. Now through the end of January, the vaccine call center is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 10 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Beginning Feb. 1, hours will extend to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The new toll-free number is 1-877-CO VAX CO (1-877-268-2926).
Vaccine call center staff are trained to answer COVID-19 vaccine-related questions, provide information about vaccine providers across the state, and give general information about COVID-19. Fifty operators are available to answer calls and can provide information in multiple languages. Staffing will expand as call volume requires.
The 1-877-CO VAX CO number is the go-to for vaccine-related questions for the general public, but they should continue using the Colorado Health Emergency Line for the Public (COHELP) and 2-1-1 Colorado for general information about COVID-19, such as the number of cases in Colorado, the list of symptoms, or how you can protect yourself.
COHELP can be reached Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. by dialing 303-389-1687 or 1-877-462-2911.
2-1-1 Colorado Community Resource Navigators are available to help by phone, Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. and can be reached by dialing 2-1-1 or toll-free 866-760-6489, or by visiting 211Colorado.org.
Right now, Colorado is in phase 1A and 1B above the dotted line of its vaccine distribution plan, which means frontline health care workers, first responders, and people age 70 and older are eligible to receive the vaccine. Until the vaccine is widely available and used, and community immunity is achieved, it is important to continue taking precautions to slow the spread of the virus, like wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings, and practicing physical distancing. More information about Colorado’s vaccine efforts is available at covid19.colorado.gov/vaccine.
Continue to stay up to date by visiting covid19.colorado.gov.
Both the Byers and Strasburg High School boys and girls commence the COVID-19 Season B tonight on the hardwood, and while visitors into gyms are limited, both sets of contests can be viewed online.
Byers travels to Kiowa tonight to face off with the host Indians. The varsity girls game is slated to start at 5 p.m. with the varsity boys to follow at 7 p.m. Both games are available to view on the Kiowa Athletics YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBrHhgJmTULn01bO-QMj49w.
Both Strasburg varsity teams host Weld Central this evening with the Lady Indians to tip off at 5 p.m. and the boys at 7 p.m. Online access for both games is available at https://youtu.be/0yey-ah0ulA or by going to the Forever Indians of Strasburg High School page on Facebook and clicking on the link for the YouTube broadcast.
For coverage of both schools’ games and other basketball games and wrestling matches contested through Thursday, Jan. 28, see the Feb. 2 edition of The I-70 Scout.
These great horned owl chicks went to the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program for rehab after their nest tree was cut down.
DENVER – Ten recipients of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s third annual Wildlife Rehabilitation Grants have been announced. The grants are offered by CPW to support wildlife rehabilitation efforts across the state.
“These ten grants reach across the state,” said CPW Director Dan Prenzlow. “They include investments to expand rehabilitation facilities for the long-term and funding to help keep existing facilities open to meet public demand.”
“We had more than $48,000 in funding requests but only $16,200 in funding available,” said Jim Guthrie, Program Coordinator for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Grants Program. “There’s a big need out there. A lot of Colorado rehabbers run on shoestring budgets. They put in tremendous personal effort for the love of helping animals recover from accidents or injury.”
“The rehabilitation of Colorado’s wildlife species often happens quietly, by a relatively few number of qualified and licensed professionals around the state,” said John Gale, Chair of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Grants Board. “They provide critical services across a diversity of species – large and small – often at great personal expense. Colorado’s grant program provides important support to wildlife rehabilitators, increasing resources and allowing them to help more animals.”
The work supported through this year’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Grants includes:
The grant program was created through House Bill 17-1250. Funding for the grant program comes primarily from the nongame tax check-off program, along with fines from nongame wildlife-based offenses and interest income. For the first $250,000 raised annually, 10 percent is allocated to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Grant Program, which aims to provide funding specifically for wildlife rehabilitation centers. For many rehabbers, this kind of funding fills a critical gap.
“On behalf of my fellow committee members and Colorado Parks and Wildlife professionals,” said Gale, “I want to extend our appreciation to Colorado taxpayers for their generous donations and continued investment in this highly successful grant program.”
Applications for Wildlife Rehabilitation Grant Awards are due each year in early November. For more information on the grant program and application materials, please visit the Wildlife Rehabilitation Grants page.
2020 Wildlife Rehabilitation Grant Awards
Rocky Mountain WildHeart – Colorado Springs
Lynette Carson – Beulah
Colorado BatCREW – Conifer
Emily Davenport – Sedalia
North Park Wildlife Rehabilitation
Wild Bird Rescue – Englewood
Shellee Lawson – Bailey
Rocky Mountain Raptor Program – Fort Collins
SonFlower Ranch Wildlife Rehabilitation – Brighton
Bill Main – Colorado Springs
Caption for photos below: This red-tailed hawk was struck by a vehicle and had severe spinal and head trauma when it was brought to the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program for rehab. With time and care it was released back to the wild again.
DENVER – Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s latest podcast episode discusses how to get in front of backcountry danger in the winter.
Click here to listen to this episode. All episodes of Colorado Outdoors can also be found on your favorite podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Pandora and more.
Outdoor agencies across Colorado have seen an increase in park visitation and off-grid winter recreation. Recreating in the backcountry requires certain precautions and equipment to ensure a safe outdoor experience.
Podcast host Mark Johnson talks with two CPW experts on winter backcountry recreation. Ben Plankis is the trails coordinator for the northeast region of the agency and Michael Haskins is a park ranger at Chatfield State Park who assist backcountry search and rescue teams with rescue missions.
For more information on backcountry winter safety courses, visit colorado.com/WinterBackcountrySafety and take the Colorado Backcountry Winter Safety Pledge.
TOPIC LIST:
2:40 – what do people need to consider when they head up into the high country
3:56 – know before you go – Check Avalanche and Weather Forecast atcolorado.gov/avalanche
4:37 – equipment to keep you safe should you be caught in an avalanche
5:40 – avalanche awareness classes
6:38 – what to know if new to Colorado
7:28 – what should you look for when in potential avalanche terrain
8:05 – advice for experienced backcountry visitors
9:40 – snow conditions this year and more people venturing out in the backcountry
10:10 – guidelines for heading up into the backcountry
11:38 – easy access into the backcountry can lead people into a false sense of security
12:30 – what to do/know/have if you need help
15:20 – COTREX trails app and cell phone GPS capabilities
The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) is taking part in Community Risk Reduction (CRR) Week. CRR Week is a grass-roots effort by an informal group of fire safety professionals from across the nation. The goal of CRR is to reduce the occurrence and impact of emergency events for both community members and emergency responders.
CRR Week 2021 will take place Monday, January 18, 2021, through Sunday, January 24, 2021. It will kick off on Martin Luther King Day, which is a national day of service.
The idea is to help promote the awareness of CRR within the fire service by having a week where everyone can do CRR programs and demonstrate its importance to the fire service.
Throughout the week, DFPC will publish one video a day, discussing the importance of community risk reduction.
Follow CRR on social media via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter @CRRweek.
Learn more at crrweek.org
A herd numbering upwards of 2,000 elk was seen on Jan. 7 when CPW was surveying this unit to look at population demographics and how the animals fared following the Cameron Peak Fire (photo courtesy of Jason Clay/CPW)
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Despite burning 208,913 acres across Larimer County from August through December, it does not appear the Cameron Peak Fire had short-term impacts on the elk herds in Larimer County.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Angelique Curtis took flight in a Bell 407 helicopter to survey the elk herds for the first time since the fire, which is the largest ever to burn in Colorado. She classified roughly 4,200 elk in the seven hour flight on Thursday, Jan. 7.
Curtis used satellite GPS collars as a part of a new study launched one year ago to help locate the herds across the Laramie River Valley, Red Feather Lakes and the Cherokee State Wildlife Area.
“The elk that we saw today actually summered up where the Cameron Peak Fire burned in the Comanche Peak Wilderness, Long Draw area and up in Dead Man,” Curtis said. “What we saw today is that the fire didn’t inhibit them from actually getting to their wintering ground and we saw some pretty good calf recruitment.
“We did see healthy animals on the ground, so the fire didn’t seem to affect them health wise.”
Depending on how hot the fire may have burned across the region, the possibility exists that productive habitat will be there for wildlife as early as this spring. The amount of moisture we receive over winter will help play a role in that. As we progress through winter and into spring, biologists and forest ecologists will have a better understanding of the outlook of the post-fire burn area.
Some of these herds numbered in the thousands, making it difficult to count the animals and record their sex and age class. Curtis relies on the pilot to not only maintain human safety while in the air, but also keep in mind the well-being of the wildlife down below.
“In order for us to properly classify them, the pilot has to go in there and actually carve off a group of 35 to 40 elk at a time and then his job is to keep those elk separated from the main herd,” Curtis said. “So when we are doing this it is definitely the pilot and his skills that get us the data we need.”
When approaching from the sky, the pilot first circles the herd to look for hazards before lowering in closer to break them up into smaller groups. This video from inside the cockpit shows that operation.
“A lot of animal welfare goes into it,” said Cameron Stallings, Chief Pilot from Aero Tech, Inc. “You don’t want to run them through fences or over cliffs or run them too long, things like that. Flying in the mountains when it is windy is difficult and there are things you have to consider there.”
This herd is classified by CPW in its Data Analysis Unit (DAU) E-4. The last time biologists surveyed this herd from the sky was in 2006.
“The purpose of these flights is to get a classification,” Curtis said. “Classification is the cow, calf and bulls that we see on the ground and that is entered into a model and then from there we use the model to produce population estimates and to decide how many licenses we need to give out each year.”
This particular herd does not have a model. Population models are used to help CPW manage populations within the objective ranges, which include setting annual hunting license allocations. The Habitat Partnership Program(HPP), funded by revenue from the sale of big game licenses, assists CPW to meet game management objectives for deer, elk, pronghorn and moose.
It was Larimer County HPP funds that paid for the GPS satellite collars for this elk study. Funds from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation were used towards the aerial capture efforts to get the collars deployed on the elk.
Now those collars are playing a crucial role in obtaining the data wildlife managers need. They not only assist biologists in helping locate the herds to classify them, but document movement patterns, habitat use, reproduction success and can help identify mortality causes.
“This is the first year of data and I’ll probably need another three or four years of data in order to build the model properly, but I’m getting an idea of how many elk are out on the landscape and how the elk are moving through the landscape,” Curtis said.
Potential long term effects from the fire are not yet known. It is a good sign the elk were able to make it down to their wintering grounds, but biologists are curious what next summer will bring for the herds.
“It is going to be interesting to see when they migrate back to their summer range, how that is going to affect their movement patterns and if they are going to go to the same locations as they did the previous year,” Curtis said.
Watch how biologists tracked elk movements during the Cameron Peak Fire
Photos Below (courtesy of Jason Clay/CPW)
Left: Wildlife biologist Angelique Curtis (left) and pilot Cameron Stallings (right) point out an elk herd as they fly across western Larimer County
Right: An aerial view of portions burned from the Cameron Peak Fire