At its May 12 work session, the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners heard about the new Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code (CWRC) from Colorado Division of Fire and Life Safety Kim McDonald — a wildland-urban interface (WUI) professional development educator — and counterpart Aaron Goss.
McDonald also held a community discussion centered around the CWRC in Archuleta County Monday evening.
The CWRC is a state code applying to new construction and significant exterior alterations and additions within the WUI. The code sets a mandatory minimum standard for new residential and commercial construction in mapped wildfire‑risk areas and will go into effect July 1.
McDonald described it as a minimum, risk‑based standard rather than a blanket “Front Range only” rule that is not retroactive for existing homes.
In his presentation to the BoCC, McDonald explained that the CWRC focuses on “home hardening and defensible space,” including Class A roofs, ember‑resistant vents, non‑combustible gutters and a zero- to 5-foot non‑combustible zone around structures, with additional vegetation management out to 100 feet.
McDonald went on to explain that the CWRC is designed to safeguard life and property by mitigating the risk of wildfires spreading to and from structures.
Research in McDonald’s presentation indicates that WUI codes are highly effective in lowering recovery costs and reducing risk, especially given that more than 4,000 homes and other structures in Colorado have been destroyed by wildfires since 2010.
In a legislative push to address the growing risk of destructive fires, McDonald reported, Colorado established the CWRC through Senate Bill 23-166. The bill, signed into law by the governor on May 12, 2023, mandates that local governing bodies with jurisdiction over WUI areas must adopt the new statewide minimum standards by April 1.
The BoCC adopted the code on March 17.
The code does not cover interior remodels, small sheds and minor outbuildings; routine maintenance or painting; and single homes on parcels greater than 35 acres with no commercial use, unless additional structures or a business are added.
While the code sets a statewide minimum, the presentation explains that local jurisdictions retain discretion over implementation and enforcement.
“The biggest aspect of this is only for new construction, both residential and commercial, and it’s depending on the location within the maps of how it’s going to be addressed,” McDonald said.
Local governments retain broad discretion over enforcement and how strictly to apply the rules, noted Goss and McDonald, but the code is designed to slow fire spread, protect firefighters and improve community survival rates, particularly in high‑risk zones identified on the state’s wildfire intensity (WE) map.
“I hate to use the word mandate, because I don’t think it’s appropriate, but it is a required code, [and] it really does serve a purpose in our state,” McDonald said. “This model code is for the state of Colorado, so it covers from the plains to the mountains. It covers all aspects … It’s not going to work in Nevada, it’s not going to work in Oregon, but it is very effective for what we have here in the state.”
In their presentation, McDonald and Goss shared that the WUI is defined and mapped statewide using fire‑intensity data, like fuels, topography and critical fire weather, to show crossover between homes and infrastructure with hazardous vegetation.
“The majority of homeowners believe that firefighters are going to be at their house during a wildfire. The reality is only about 10 percent of homes see firefighters actively around that home, and those are the homes that they are going to have the best chance at saving,” Goss said.
He continued, explaining that the state code board decided to look at fire intensity as the base layer for defining the WUI for the state, and went to the Colorado State Forest Service for data.
“They essentially did a smoothing exercise and created a hexagonal pattern … to basically average the risk across defined areas and say, ‘This is where we’re seeing that specific risk,’” he said.
The presentation highlights the new mapped WUI areas based on Fire Intensity Classification, with low (yellow), moderate (orange) or high (red) determining the level of required protection.
These three intensity levels are grouped into two code classifications, with class 1 applying to low-hazard areas and class 2 applying to moderate- and high-hazard areas.
The presenters noted that the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety estimates that about 90 percent of structure fires are ignited by embers that can travel upwards of 3 miles ahead of a fire front.
“So, even if a home is not directly adjacent to hazardous fuels, we’re still really concerned about those millions of embers that get cast to land and get into all those little pockets around decks and those firewood piles. Even stuff like outdoor patio furniture with cushions can be receptive beds for these embers,” McDonald said. “So, the yellow area is designed to help guard against a lot of those embers and flashing fuel fires, like the grasses that we saw with the Marshall Fire, and lessen the risk of those homes ignited there.”
The presentation discusses the two primary requirements on which the CWRC relies.
Structure hardening, with class 1 requirements specifying Class A roofing and noncombustible gutters. Class 2 includes these, plus additional mandates for noncombustible or ignition-resistant materials for exterior walls, decking, eaves, windows and doors.
The second site management, or defensible space, involves establishing three ignition zones around a structure. The Immediate Zone (zero to 5 feet) requires the use of noncombustible, hard surfaces such as rock or concrete. For Class 2 areas, the requirements extend to the Intermediate Zone (5 to 30 feet) and Expanded Zone (30 to 100 feet), focusing on shrub and tree spacing to minimize fire intensity.
“Let’s set our resources up for as much success as possible. Let’s give them a chance to actually fight … The goal of this is, let’s put forward a code that has minimum standards, maximum flexibility for the communities,” Goss said.
The wildfire resiliency code is fundamentally a science‑based effort to slow fire spread and keep neighborhoods intact, shared McDonald, adding that combining structure hardening like materials and design with proper vegetation management around homes can improve a community’s chances of surviving a wildfire by an estimated 40 to 60 percent.
“A lot of families never come back after a fire,” he said. “So, we can prevent just individual homes, prevent complete developments from going away.”
eslade@orourkemediagroup.com
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