JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — The Snow Creek Fire in 2022 was a wake-up call for Willow Springs resident Todd Houghton.
“When you find out you're about to be evacuated, you start thinking, ‘Okay, did I do enough?’” he recalled.
Houghton started a movement, getting neighbors on board to better prepare their homes against the threat of wildfires.
“It's finding people who are interested — we call them spark plugs — and it just takes one or two on a street or in a neighborhood, and then they become the person that's interested in learning,” he said.
Houghton told Denver7 that close to half of the residents in the Willow Springs community have taken steps to mitigate their properties by creating defensible space around their homes over the past three years. Those fire prevention efforts could soon gain momentum after the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners voted to fund a new Wildland Fire Management Program.
County leaders are calling the program a "holistic approach" to protect residents from wildfire threats.
“It’s not only staffing, it's also capital investments and equipment and gear and supplies so that we're as prepared as possible when there's an incident to respond,” said Brian Keating, wildland fire program manager.
- In late November, Denver7 went in-depth on the reality of year-round wildfires in our special "Burned Out." Watch the 22-minute special in the video player below
In 2024, Jefferson County voters passed Ballot Measure 1A, allowing the county to keep revenue to support public safety and infrastructure. Through that, the county is now able to invest $7 million to create 37 new staff positions, including two full wildland fire crews that will provide coverage seven days a week— a first for Jefferson County.
“During the core fire season, we will be able to augment the work that our fire protection districts do in terms of incident response,” Keating explained.
Right now, Jefferson County is among the top 2% of U.S. counties for wildfire danger, and the second-highest at-risk county in Colorado. Denver7 asked Keating how this plan could have helped during previous fires in the county, like the Quarry Fire in August 2024.
“From a county perspective, we didn't have a lot of boots on the ground to assist in that. We relied heavily on our fire districts throughout the county and from some of the neighboring counties to respond to that fire. We also had national assets. A lot of the air support we received came from all over the western United States,” said Keating. “By now having this capacity, it's going to help us be more self-reliant, especially with a lot of the changes that's going on at the federal level. We want to make sure we're investing at the county level and working with our state partners as well to make sure that we can be more self-reliant.”
Fire protection districts like Evergreen Fire Rescue, which rely mostly on volunteers, say it'll be a big help.
“Now having this response crew from Jefferson County available to help with initial attack and extended attack, to know that they're going to deploy occasionally and get more skills by going to fires across the state, across the nation — it’s great for all of us,” said Evergreen Fire Rescue public information officer Einar Jensen.
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The fire management plan also includes community education, homeowner assessments, and micro-grants to encourage more people to take that step of protecting their homes and others.
“You can't be successful at mitigating risk on a home-by-home basis. We're going to be better when we have more of a collective approach,” said Keating.
Four neighborhoods in the Willow Springs community were recently recognized by Firewise USA for their fire prevention efforts. County leaders say it’s a good start for what they hope their Wildland Fire Management Program will achieve.
“It's a big collaborative effort, right? We all want to protect this neighborhood, and so seeing everybody else get involved does help a bunch,” said Houghton. “We're very excited about that.”
Jefferson County leaders hope to have the positions fully staffed and the plan fully implemented by this fall.
