Wildfire Prevention

Our partners:

Colorado Project Wildfire and the Colorado Association of REALTORS®.

Colorado Project Wildfire is an educational initiative led by the Colorado Association of REALTORS (CAR) in partnership with fire prevention organizations. Its goal is to reduce wildfire risk by raising awareness and providing resources—like the Wildfire Preparedness Guide—to residents, especially those in the wildland-urban interface. Through education, partnerships, and community outreach, the program empowers individuals to take proactive steps to protect lives, homes, and property from wildfires.

Like CPW, Altitude REALTORS® recognizes our responsibility to safeguard homeownership and property rights.
We’re committed to supporting those at risk from wildfires by serving as a resource for education and advocacy. Our goal is to empower property owners to take part in voluntary, forward-thinking mitigation efforts that lead to lasting, positive change for individuals and communities alike. 

Click here to learn more about Colorado Project Wildfire.

Defensible Space Recommendations

Altitude REALTORS®, local REALTORS®, and their insurance company partners are working to educate and encourage their clients and the public about the importance of voluntary wildfire mitigation – on their property, in their neighborhoods, and within their communities – and the wide-reaching benefits of their efforts.

What Is Defensible Space?
A defensible space is a natural and/or landscaped area around a structure that has been maintained and designed to reduce fire danger.

Defensible Space Recommendations

Altitude REALTORS®, local REALTORS®, and their insurance company partners are working to educate and encourage their clients and the public about the importance of voluntary wildfire mitigation – on their property, in their neighborhoods, and within their communities – and the wide-reaching benefits of their efforts.

What Is Defensible Space?
A defensible space is a natural and/or landscaped area around a structure that has been maintained and designed to reduce fire danger.

Wildfire Preparation

Top 10 Wildfire Season Preparation Activities:

1. Clear dry, flammable materials within 5 feet of your home and under decks, porches, sheds, and play structures—this includes dead plants, mulch, pine needles, and other debris.
2. Remove leaves, needles, and debris from roofs and gutters to prevent ember ignition.
3. Sweep porches and decks clear of burnable materials like dead leaves, twigs, and potted plants.
4. Relocate firewood, lumber, and other combustibles at least 30 feet from your home.
5. Store items kept under decks, porches, or stairways in enclosed, ember-resistant areas or move them to a safer location.
6. Cover attic and eave vents with 1/8-inch metal mesh screening to prevent embers from entering.
7. Make sure your home’s address is clearly visible from the street, even in smoky or low-light conditions.
8. Register for emergency alerts at SCAlert.org to stay informed during fire season-and all year round! 
9. Identify at least one alternate evacuation route out of your neighborhood in case your primary route is blocked.
10. Create a home inventory including written lists, photos, and videos of valuables—store copies in the cloud or off-site.

Is Your Property at Risk from Wildfire?

Protect Your Home in Summit, Park, Lake, Routt, and Jackson Counties

Wildfires are a constant threat across our communities, and thousands of properties in Summit, Park, Lake, Routt, and Jackson counties are at risk each year. In Summit County alone, over 23,000 properties are vulnerable to wildfire damage. Could yours be one of them?

While these counties have made significant strides in wildfire awareness and mitigation, there’s no room for complacency. With an average of 2,500 wildfires annually in Colorado, the threat remains year after year. Every property owner has a responsibility to assess and reduce their wildfire risk to protect their homes, families, and communities.

How to Assess Your Property’s Risk

Step 1: Review the checklist below to determine if your property is properly prepared for wildfire season.

Step 2: Take action where needed. If you’re unsure about what to do or how to begin, there are plenty of resources and volunteer programs available to assist you. Grant funding may also be available for those who need financial support.

Wildfire Mitigation Checklist

Ensure your home and property are ready to withstand a wildfire by completing the following tasks:

• Create a 5-Foot Fuel-Free Zone
  Maintain a 5-foot perimeter around your home, free of any flammable materials like mulch, leaves, branches, or other debris. Make sure decks, sheds, and play structures are also clear.

• Clear the Area Around Propane Tanks
  Remove all trees, shrubs, and brush within 10 feet of propane tanks or any other fuel sources.

• Remove Debris from Roofs, Gutters, and Yard
  Keep leaves, pine needles, and other debris off your roof and out of gutters, as well as in your yard.

• Trim Overhanging Branches
  Ensure there are no branches within 15 feet of your chimney or extending over your roof. This helps reduce the risk of sparks catching fire.

• Establish a Defensible Space Zone
  Clear brush and other fuels within a 100-foot radius of your home or to the property line (whichever is closer). This is crucial to slowing or stopping the spread of wildfire to your home.

• Prune Trees to Remove Ladder Fuels
  Trim trees so that lower branches are at least 8 feet above the ground or 1/3 of the tree’s total height, ensuring there are no easy pathways for fire to climb up trees.

Summit County Chipping Program

Those of you in Summit County can protect your home from wildfire with help from the Summit County Chipping Program. Summit County government helps residents and property owners create defensible space by providing free chipping and disposal for branches, logs and small trees. 

When it comes to wildfire, it takes everyone to protect everyone. 

Click the image above or visit SummitCountyCO.gov/chipping for more information, including participation guidelines. 

If you clear Conifer and Aspen from around your home and stack it in a slash pile, they’ll chip it and haul it away for FREE.

Each neighborhood will only be visited once, be sure to check the schedule!

Download the 2025 Chipping Schedule and Fact Sheet >

Mitigation Tips From the State of Colorado

We Encourage You to Live Wildfire Ready!

Altitude REALTORS® are joining other organizations in Colorado in a new campaign called Live Wildfire Ready. This campaign from the State of Colorado will help you better understand your wildfire risk and what you can do to prepare your home and property for wildfire.

It is especially important to prepare for wildfire if you live in the wildland-urban interface in Summit, Park, Jackos, Routt or Lake Counties. Grasses, shrubs, and trees provide fuel for wildfires. If your home is located in or near the natural vegetation of Colorado’s grasslands, shrublands, foothills or mountains, you live in the wildland-urban interface and are at risk from a wildfire.

Visit LiveWildfireReady.org to explore your wildfire risk and learn simple, practical, relatively low-cost actions you can take to prepare your home and property for wildfire and be ready if a wildfire occurs. Or search for #LiveWildfireReady on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Wildfire Tax Credit Information

Potential Wildfire policies could increase the cost of home ownership in Colorado.

In 2013, after Colorado experienced some devastating wildfires, the Governor’s Wildfire Task Force submitted policy recommendations for preparedness and mitigation, including those that could impact property rights, values and sales, and the availability and cost of insurance.

Altitude REALTORS® believes wildfire preparedness should be achieved through education, voluntary mitigation efforts, and incentives, not by unreliable risk ratings and government mandates.

As a wildland-urban interface (WUI) – a place where human development is adjacent to or surrounded by wildlands – Summit County has more than 23,000 properties at risk for wildfire. This WUI designation means Summit County homeowners are at increased risk of the negative effects of proposed legislation.

Among the recommendations of concern include:

• A disclosure that a home is within the WUI and at a higher risk for wildfire.
• A website that would rate all WUI properties on a scale of 1-10 for wildfire risk.
• Higher property taxes for homes in the WUI.
• Costly and mandatory defensible space and wildfire mitigation.

The 2013 recommendations were not implemented, but unless homeowners are proactive with mitigation efforts, another bad wildfire season could motivate legislators to approve those detrimental mandates.

Additional Resources

In the State of Colorado, wildfires are increasing due to drought and extensive fuel created by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Altitude REALTORS® recognizes the need for local fire districts and homeowners alike to develop protections to aid against wildfire activity in our areas, with a focus on proactive prevention.

Altitude REALTORS® is the ultimate home-ownership and property rights advocate for our Counties (Jackson, Park, Routt, Lake and Summit) and is working to educate and inform homeowners and the public to encourage voluntary opportunities for mitigation and creation of defensible spaces in and around our counties.

To read the Altitude REALTORS® Property and Wildfire Mitigation policy in full, please click here.

Elk Creek Fire Protection District:

Conifer, Colorado

Hartsel Fire Protection District

The southern portion of South Park, Colorado

Jefferson / Como Fire Protection District

District 6

Lake George Fire Protection District

Southeast corner of Park County

Southern Park County Fire Protection District

Guffey, Colorado

North West Fire Protection District

Fairplay, Colorado

Please visit parkco.us for more information!