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Home My WebLink AboutOS Fire Fuel ProblemOS Fire Fuel Problem Alan Delamere & Hans Bucher 3/10/2026 1 The problem •Getting rid of: •Tall grasses •Dead wood •Evergreen Bushes and Trees •OSMP have known about the magnitude of this problem for years •So does OSMP have long range plans? 2 Red Rocks South Ridge 3 Knollwood full of evergreen bushes and Trees 4 Suggestion •Have a public meeting to study the key issues •Early detection •Rapid response •Fire fuel removal •Include experts in all fields •County wild fire team •State fire planners •Helicopter and tanker pilots •AlertWest Colorado leaders •Drone evaluators •Fire insurance adjustors •NOAA forecasters •People who lost their homes •Lousiville •Pacific Palisades 5 Open Space Fire Fuel •Priority list - Brian Oliver •Sanitas Valley •South ridge of Red Rocks •Tall grasses east of Dakota Ridge •Other areas 6 Early detection •Autonomous high quality Infrared camera network •Finding illegal campers •IR Camera drones •Light aircraft with IR camera •Satellites ref: GINA In Alaska •https://gina.alaska.edu/training-resources/wildfire-resources/ What works and what can we afford? 7 BE PREPARED •Predict a red flag warning a couple of days ahead. •NOAA forecast •https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?w0=t&w1=td&w2=wc&w3=sfcwi nd&w3u=1&w4=sky&w5=pop&w6=rh&w7=rain&w8=thunder&w9=snow&w1 0=fzg&w11=sleet&w13u=0&w14u=1&pqpfhr=6&psnwhr=6&AheadHour=0&F cstType=graphical&textField1=40.0203&textField2=- 105.2897&site=all&unit=0&dd=&bw=&AheadDay.x=36&AheadDay.y=13 •See next slide. •You can adjust location. 8 No night relief 9 What actions can OSMP take early? •OSMP reschedule staff schedules •Charge all communication equipment •Start patrols for illegal campers •Check out fire equipment and reposition it as appropriate. •Find out the availability of state tankers and helicopters •Cancel any controlled burn activity 10 Estimates of fuel removal •This is a staggeringly large job •How can we get reliable estimates? •Clear one small area and record person hours •Measure areas to be cleared •Calculate how many years it will take using existing OSMP staff to do the work •Can we engage the Boulder community in helping with the stick upick-ups? The community owns our Open Space! 11 Controlled burns •Paul Dennison, Wildland Fire Sr Program Manager, showed a map of OS problem areas •He was planning controlled burns •Where? and what areas? and When? •Multi agency, permits, signoffs, weather dependent, and beaucoup vigilance - does encourage action 12 Complacency •The administrations of Pacific Palisades, Ca and Fort McMurray, Alberta thought they had everything under control -- until it wasn’t •Let’s not be complacent in Boulder •We need to take wildfire mitigation to a higher level of implementation. •OSBT could start the ball rolling by requesting a serious review of our situation 13 Recommendations •Take the stroll around Red Rocks and verify for yourselves that our concern is valid •At the next meeting you will be briefed on the fire situation •Plan your questions ahead of time •Time schedule of mitigation •Funding required to mitigate fuel removal •Define an OSBT action list to eliminate complacency •Early detection should head the list 14 Backup information 15 Cameras •Resolution •Pixel size at target (how big an area can be seen) • Field of View •Fixed X pixels by Y pixels •Increase the field of view by: • rotating camera • scanning moving the camera on a vehicle (Helicopter, Drone, Aircraft or Satellite) • Spectral range •Visible can see smoke only in the day •Thermal Infrared - can see people and warm spots at night 16 Cameras areas to be covered •Locations •High points •Towers •Shadow zones •Our mountains get in the way •County is deploying many AlertWest cameras see map (REF?) •How many more cameras do we need to protect Boulder? 17 Our two OS boundaries •Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) •On the east side of OS •Wildland/Wildland Interface (WWI) •On the west side of OS •A fire west of OS only has OS to protect Boulder • We have a lot of burnable forest between Boulder and the Continental Divide •How deep do these areas have to be? +/-400 yards, +/-800 yards 18 Clean up Evergreen trees in WWUI and WWI areas •Our Fire Marshall recommends: •Confers be trimmed to head height •All burnable material shall be cleared beneath trees •What radius? •Is it more cost effective to cut down conifers than meet the recommendation? •Do a test area to find out 19