Avon continues to prepare for wildfire with the mentality that ‘it’s only a matter of time’

Living in the mountains means learning to be prepared for wildfires. Though this spring has been wet thus-far and fire risk has been low, heading into summer, local officials are preparing for the worst.

The month of May is National Wildfire Awareness Month, and, throughout much of Eagle County, many municipalities are also declaring May Wildfire Preparedness Month.

Leaders of the Avon Police Department and the Eagle River Fire Protection District presented to the Avon Town Council on Tuesday, May 14 on the protocols that will protect the town and its residents in the event of a wildfire.

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Preparing Avon

Wildfires have become a year-round event, said Avon Police Chief Greg Daly at the meeting. Being prepared, on the individual, town and county levels, is crucial.

“It’s one of those things that, unfortunately, people leave until the last minute,” Daly said. “(They think) ‘Oh, it’s never going to happen to me, I don’t need to worry about it.'”

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But having the ‘what if?’ conversation within a home is crucial, Daly said. “‘What if we had to run out the door now, because we have an evacuation order? What do we need to grab now, and where do we need to grab it, and can we have it centralized and know we’re going to get it easily without having to run around the house to find it?'”

In conjunction with Eagle County, Avon is promoting five wildfire preparedness objectives for individuals.

1. Download the ReachWell app to receive Eagle County alerts in 130 languages
2. Check home insurance, particularly fire insurance
3. Make a personal emergency evacuation plan, with all necessities identified and easily accessible: People and pets first; then papers, phone numbers and important documents; prescriptions, vitamins and eyeglasses; pictures and memorabilia; personal computers; and plastic cards and cash
4. Sign up for a free home assessment conducted by a fire safety professional through REALFire to learn personalized wildfire risks and mitigation opportunities
5. Stay mindful of wildfire trends

To prepare the town for a wildfire event, Avon participates in the Eagle County Wildfire Evacuation Plan, and is also a participant in county-wide zone mapping, down to blocks of space, that can be used by first responders to coordinate a fire response effort. Avon police officers carry the map in their vehicles, which can be used to design a flexible evacuation plan in case of a wildfire. 

Additionally, there are five emergency sirens in Wildridge, Wildwood, and Mountain Star, which are tested on a monthly basis. While testing currently occurs during the day, night testing is soon to come.

Eagle Valley Wildland’s efforts

Eagle Valley Wildland has several ongoing wildfire mitigation projects in Avon and countywide.

In 2023, using $80,000 from the town of Avon, Eagle Valley Wildland applied for and received a $243,500 grant from the Colorado State Forest Service. The grant was used to treat 202.8 acres, focused on the Metcalf evacuation area, as well as Singletree and the Cordillera Valley Club.

The Metcalf treatment drew attention last year for its dramatic impacts to the hillside, but grass has already begun to grow back in. “The harshness of that treatment will blend away this year,” said Hugh Fairfield-Smith, fire management officer of Eagle Valley Wildland.

Eagle Valley Wildland is also operating a free, countywide chipping service for extraneous vegetation. Residents can put their slash on the curb, and it will be picked up for free. So far, the service has collected 75,000 pounds in Gypsum and 76,000 pounds in Eagle. The project will run throughout the summer, with Avon’s REFUSE collected during the third week of every month.

In 2024, Avon provided Eagle Valley Wildland with another $80,000, which has been used to apply for a grant from the U.S. Forest Service, with a response expected in June. Eagle Valley Wildland has also contracted $169,750 to treat 56 additional acres in Wildridge, with work slated to begin in late May.

Eagle Valley Wildland and Eagle River Fire are also moving forward with the Colorado Ready Wildfire Action Plan, a community wildfire protection plan that focuses completely on water and water sustainability, Fairfield-Smith said.

“The reason it’s good for us is we can look high on watersheds and start to mitigate those areas of concern before a wildfire impact can change the severity of them,” Fairfield-Smith said.

May 24 fire evacuation practice

On Friday, May 24, the yearly evacuation drill in Wildridge will take place from 9 a.m. to noon. This will be the ninth year of the evacuation exercise, and the location changes each year. This year, the exercise will be conducted in the area surrounding North Point and Flat Point. There are no anticipated impacts to travel on roadways.

Around 20 local and regional partners and entities are involved in the exercise this year. “It’s what we do every year. We try and fine tune it, look for better ways and better technology to help us be able to exercise those capabilities,” said Coby Cosper, Avon deputy police chief.

“We do this to test our ability to respond to a wildland-urban interface wildfire,” Cosper said.

The wildland-urban interface is defined as the area where human development meets undeveloped wildland and potential vegetation fuel for wildfires.

“Wildfire season is almost year-round,” Cosper said. “I’d also say there is really no wildland-urban interface anymore. It’s really our whole valley. It used to be where the houses met the trees, now it’s really our whole community, because of climate change and the fuels that we have and where we live.”

This year, officials will test a strategy for reducing the evacuation path to be shorter and safer, as well as testing one of the alerting sirens already placed in Wildridge. The drill will also involve exercising and testing “core capability areas,” including planning and traffic control, critical transportation, and law enforcement protections, according to Cosper.

For years, Avon has worked on cultivating an expansion to June Creek Trail as a potential alternate evacuation route for Wildridge, which relies on Metcalf Road as its only ingress and egress. During this year’s evacuation exercise, officials will examine alternate evacuation routes, including over Forest Service Road 717.1A and 717.1B. 

“Previously, we had communities that had one way in, and one way out, and that was very appealing. We liked that. Now, unfortunately, because of the change in our environment and other factors, we realize that is a huge detriment,” Cosper said.

Avon officials are still working on securing the June Creek Trail emergency egress. “Hopefully by the end of this year, that will be in place, and then next year we will actually be able to use that route if we need to as we move forward in the future fire season,” Cosper said.

In response to Cosper’s presentation, council member and Wildridge resident Chico Thuon cited information provided to him by a client in the insurance business to provide a warning. “It’s not if we get evacuated, it’s when,” Thuon said. “It’s going to happen; we live in that environment now, and it’s real.”

Agreeing with Thuon, Cosper said, “we just have to be aware that this is our new normal, and it’s only a matter of time. That’s why we’ve been pushing so hard for the last several years to get an alternate route in.”

Heading into Friday’s evacuation exercise, Daly emphasized the need for collaboration.

“It really is Team Avon, from our perspective. Every single department in this town is involved in this type of exercise, from finance to public operations to general government to transit, everybody is involved in this. So if we were to have an event — I don’t like to say ‘when’ — but if we were to have event, it is all hands on deck,” Daly said.