Colorado firefighters work to clear dead brush to prevent wildfires in mountain community

Nearly 300,000 acres have been destroyed in wildfires across Colorado so far this year. Five firefighters were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed. 

That has prompted one fire department to take action to help prevent wildfires in their mountain community. 

"This area has a lot of dead, and down there's some standing dead. Those fuels just translate into food for fire. So what they're doing is cutting out all the dead, stacking it, we'll haul some away, and we'll burn some of it," said Aspen Fire Department Deputy Chief Andy Fisher.

Firefighters had cleared around 30 acres by last weekend. Last year, voters living around Aspen approved sales and property tax increases to specifically fund wildfire reduction. 

"The mitigation work we did goes right ot the backyard of a lot of homes," said Fisher.

The fire department hired a crew to handle the mitigation work, which can be seen from town. 

"That is a wildfire mitigation project that is aimed at reducing the horizontal and vertical continuity of the mountain brush. Essentially reducing the intensity of a wildfire and also improving wildlife habitat," said Fisher.

The goal is to create a ring around the city to help protect homes and businesses in case there is a fire. 

"It's not a matter of if, but when a fire approaches the community of Aspen, it will be able to take it in such a way that the fire intensity is lessened and lessens the ember cast onto the community. And hopefully reduces the potential for structure-to-structure fire spread," said Fisher.

Included as part of the program are home audits and education for homeowners about increasing their defensible space. The funding has been earmarked for years. 

"You'll see that what's left is heavy dense timber; that's a separate skill set, a little more complexity, that will probably be a 2027 thing where we begin to selectively remove some dense canopy and create some canopy separation," said Fisher.

The Aspen Fire Department meets weekly to assess where the mitigation goes next in collaboration with the town, Pitkin County, and other groups. The goal is to improve the environment for everyone and wildlife living around the Roaring Fork Valley. 

"You can see the guys are leaving the service berry standing because it's a critical food source for bears near town," said Fisher. "And they are focusing a lot on the dead and downed and a lot on the very dense gamble oak."