Carbondale leaders hear new home-level wildfire model, fire district commits one-third of study cost

Carbondale trustees heard a detailed briefing on local wildfire risk and on a new modeling approach that maps vulnerability at the building level, and the Carbondale-area fire district said it will contribute toward an initial study.

The presentation on wildfire risk and mitigation began with Rob Goodwin, introduced as chief of the Carbondale and Bridal Fire Protection District, and Angie Daven, introduced as executive director of the Roaring Fork Valley wildfire collaborative. Goodwin told the board the district covers about 300 square miles and that it combines career and volunteer staff; he said the district has responded to about 40 wildfires this year and is on its fifth national wildfire deployment.

Why it matters: presenters and trustees said the valley’s topography, mature pinyon‑juniper and oak fuels and populated slopes put Carbondale at unusually high risk for wildfire and for post‑fire hazards such as mudflows. The collaborative argued that a granular, home‑level model would let planners and fire agencies target fuels reduction, evacuation planning and defensible‑space efforts more effectively than standard landscape‑scale burn‑probability maps.

What presenters described: Daven said the collaborative brings together 13 fiscal partners and roughly 50 stakeholders to plan and fund fuels treatments and resilience projects across the watershed; she told the board the collaborative has brought in about $4.2 million to date and that municipal operating contributions are typically $10,000 each. She cited FEMA research noting large returns on proactive mitigation spending.

The technical pitch: presenters described a model developed by an academic researcher they called “Dr. Mahmoud” (described during the meeting as an endowed chair at Vanderbilt University) that treats every structure and fuel patch as nodes in a connected network and simulates fire spread by convection, radiation and ember transport. Daven said the researcher’s model simulates thousands of potential ignition points and assigns relative vulnerability to each structure by combining building attributes (roof and siding materials, surrounding vegetation and other factors) with terrain, roads and likely ignition locations.

Local pilot work and accuracy: Daven described a pilot in Marble where crews surveyed every home and collected data on roughly a dozen attributes per structure; she said the researcher’s retrospective runs matched observed fire outcomes with reported accuracy in the low‑to‑mid 80s (for example, “82–85%” was cited during the meeting). Daven said the Marble work will be followed by similar studies proposed for Redstone, Carbondale and Missouri Heights, and that adding an evacuation‑layer analysis for places with constrained egress (Marble was cited as an example) is an important second step.

Cost and next steps: presenters said the two‑part study (damage‑potential mapping plus an evacuation layer) would cost about $150,000. Chief Goodwin said the fire district had committed roughly one‑third of that amount toward Carbondale’s portion. Daven and the chief asked the trustees to consider budgeting for the town’s share in 2026 and to support staff collaboration on data collection and homeowner surveys.

Trustee questions and board response: trustees asked about data collection, privacy and how model outputs would be shared with homeowners. Daven said the collaborative can produce neighborhood‑level outputs that would guide targeted mitigation without publishing single‑home vulnerability scores if the town prefers aggregated layers. Trustees discussed using the collaborative’s free home‑mitigation consults and 50/50 grant program (up to $1,500 per property) to help homeowners act on survey findings; several trustees urged exploration of contractor‑certification and local contractor partnerships to reduce the burden on homeowners.

What the board did: there was no formal motion or vote during the work session. Trustees expressed support in principle and asked staff to return with a formal proposal and budget request. Goodwin announced the fire district’s pledge of roughly one‑third of the $150,000 estimate for Carbondale’s portion of the study and urged the town to consider contributing in 2026.

Outlook: presenters argued the model provides a more actionable view of how wildfires can propagate through neighborhoods and into structures — information they said is useful for targeting fuels treatments, home hardening and evacuation planning. Trustees asked staff to work with the collaborative on a detailed proposal and potential funding sources.