My wife and I were out for a longer day hike when we crest the hill and got a dead-on view of a new wildfire. We knew immediately it was in the direction of our house, and it was growing rapidly. The evacuation notices immediately go out, giving some folks less than 5 minutes to go. Are you ready in this scenario? What must you do now? Take a look at the pic below of the close up. What are the best sites for information in the event of a fire?
What would you do if you had 5 minutes or less to evacuate? Above is a picture off inciweb of the aerial of the fire I saw from the road (first pic) The recent fires throughout the state are a keen reminder of the steps we all need to take in order to protect ourselves and our largest asset.
You are probably wondering why a private lender like myself is writing about wildfires in Colorado (this is applicable to any area where there is a forest/urban interface) as wildfires are not bound to just the mountains (recall the devastating fires in Colorado Springs a few years back).
I have experienced this chilling exercise to evacuate multiple times and also lost multiple properties we had loans on to fires so I wanted to share some key learnings over the years to help everyone else. I put together 5 simple and quick steps everyone should take today in order to protect yourself, your family, and your property.
Below is an excerpt from a post 15 years ago I had written about that killed multiple people in the foothills:
I had just come back to the house and looked out the kitchen window to a large dark plume of smoke. It was quickly apparent that this fire was moving quickly. We had gusts to 40mph with no rain in the past couple weeks. As I stood there mesmerized by how quickly the smoke was drifting in our direction, we got the level 3 evacuation notice which is the highest evacuation order, it basically meant we had under 5 minutes to grab our belongings and go.
There was no time to spare. At that time we lived in a hand hewn log home that definitely wasn’t built to withstand fire. Furthermore, our house was in a heavily wooded area that was very steep; these conditions would enable a fire to take off very quickly and put both life and property in danger almost immediately.
A number of folks actually perished in this fire. Unfortunately all of these deaths were preventable with some basic steps.
The recent fires throughout the state are a good reminder of how quickly things can turn bad. As a result, I wanted to share some key learnings with each of you since I’ve now experienced a number of evacuations (this is not some canned list I found online).
One side note: Many people don’t realize that a wildfire is not bound to just mountainous areas. For example, the fires in CO Springs a few years ago were not far out of downtown and hundreds of homes were lost in a matter of hours (there have been wildfires in the past in boulder city limits, castle rock, and throughout the front range etc…).
Furthermore, Wildfires can move very quickly. If a fire is a mile or two away, it can within 10 or 15 minutes easily cover that distance based on terrain, wind, etc…
Are you prepared?
Here are 5 tips to help prepare yourself and your family. These steps should be taken now.
1) Make sure you actually sign up for your counties reverse 911, many of the county systems are just plain wrong with their location software. If you do not make sure your info is accurate, you may never get the phone call or text to evacuate. In your county system log in and confirm your address, put in your cell phones, office, e-mail, etc…
2) Take time before a fire to think about what you would take if you had 5-10 minutes to load up and leave. Make a list of the items and stick to the list (in the wildfires last year, there were some folks who did not leave immediately and tried to load up one more item… some didn’t make it out). For my family, we actually created a “fire box” with important docs, pictures, etc… all in one big bin that we can grab and go if needed. There is a list on top of the box so we don’t forget certain items. Laptop, wallet, keys, medications, etc… During earlier evacuations we had two young kids which would slow the process down a bit, we needed to make sure we had their blankets and other items. Also, don’t forget about the pets (we have two large shepherds) and any items they require
3) Think about the route you would take to exit your neighborhood or area. In the case of our neighborhood, there are at least 3 or 4 ways out to access a main street. Think how you would exit quickly if one of the routes was blocked. In the recent case a main highway was pending closure so we had to determine another way. Think of this before you must use this information. Also, if you are in an area with one exit, be more cautious and evacuate early as you don’t have a plan B.
4) Is your insurance up to date? If you look historically at the recent fires throughout Colorado, one of the biggest issues is that a number of the houses lost were considerably underinsured. The rebuild cost can (and in many cases is substantially higher than your current market value) I went through an exercise this winter with my insurance agent where I went through each room in the house and designated floor coverings (hardwood, carpet, etc..), upgrades (rock fireplace, new cabinets, etc…), different features, etc… After going through this exercise I found out I was about 30% under replacement cost, I subsequently increased my insurance to cover this. Understand that replacement cost could be more than the current market value of your house
5) Use common sense. This is the key point in an evacuation and trumps every other item above. It is amazing how some people react in situations. I saw one of my neighbors as we were pulling out of our driveway loading up his car to the brim; he had lamps, pillows, etc… I can tell you I wouldn’t risk my life for a lamp from Target.
It is also important to note that you might not always get an evacuation notice, but this is not an excuse for stupidity.
We have seen countless fires where people either weren’t aware of evacuating or got bad information. For example, years ago in the Conifer fires, many had called 911 only to be told that the wildfire wasn’t close to them and they ended up dying because of this information. I would implore everyone to use common sense and when in doubt leave.
4 sites to bookmark for fire information
- Inciweb: this is the national fire information system and for large fires this is where the most up to date information is posted with pics, closures, etc… you can click on an incident for more information, here is an example from one of the Steamboat fires
- Airnow: This site shows you an aerial map of the fire and you can see which direction it is going based on the movement of hot spots (yellow dots), below is an example where you can see more activity on the East and SE side of the fire. It is important to note that this can change quickly based on wind, terrain, etc… Airnow fire and smoke map
- NOAA: This is the federal weather service that has the most accurate weather in the mountains, click on discussion and they will talk about the fire weather, wind speeds, directions, etc… Here is an example for Copper Mountain
- Local County: The county will have additional information on closures, evacuation sites, etc.. here is an example from Rout County
Key takeaways on Wildfires in Colorado
Wildfire risk continues in Colorado; make certain you are ready
At the end of the day property is replaceable
- Prepare now as you could have limited or no time during an evacuation.
- Use common sense; I can’t emphasize this enough at the end of the day, take personal responsibility to protect yourself and your family, do not rely solely on the government or anyone else.
- Check your insurance now before the first ember flies (here is a prior article with more in depth information on property insurance and wildfires)
- Use the resources above to understand your risk in an actual fire and to ensure your safety
Additional Resources/Reading
Wildfire season are you prepared: 5 tips to take now to ensure you and your families safety
Are you properly insured? Tax value, market value, replacement cost what is the difference
https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluation.htm
https://coloradohardmoney.com/colorado-fire-season-explodes-will-you-lose-everything/
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Glen Weinberg personally writes these weekly real estate blogs based on his real estate experience as a lender and property owner. He is the owner of Fairview Commercial Lending. Glen has been published as an expert in hard money lending, real estate valuation, financing, and various other real estate topics in Bloomberg, Businessweek ,the Colorado Real Estate Journal, National Association of Realtors Magazine, The Real Deal real estate news, the CO Biz Magazine, The Denver Post, The Scotsman mortgage broker guide, Mortgage Professional America and various other national publications.
Glen resides in Colorado, lends in Colorado, owns property in Colorado, and services loans in Colorado which provides a unique real estate prospective of what is actually happening on the ground both in Denver and throughout Colorado. My goal of this real estate blog is to provide an honest assessment of what I see happening in Colorado real estate and how it will impact real estate owners, buyers, realtors, mortgage professionals, etc…
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