El Paso County adopts evacuation-modeling tool as wildfire threat grows

El Paso County Commissioner Bill Wysong said the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management announced May 13 that it acquired evacuation-modeling software called Ladders to help fire districts, law enforcement and other first responders plan and run evacuation exercises.

Wysong, who represents District 3 and survived the Waldo Canyon Fire, said the tool will take months to be adopted across agencies but will give emergency managers estimates of how long large-scale evacuations would take and permit tabletop exercises to test options.

The software purchase follows high-profile wildfires in the region and beyond. Wysong cited Waldo Canyon, which destroyed hundreds of homes in 2012, and the Marshall Fire in Boulder County in 2021 as reasons evacuation planning must account for “urban” wildfire behavior. “Evacuation planning is not traffic engineering,” Wysong said. “Traffic engineering is a requirement in most cases, but evacuation planning is not.”

The county plans a phased rollout. Wysong said OEM and participating fire districts, sheriff’s and police agencies will spend roughly three to four months bringing the system online and training staff before making neighborhood-level outputs available. He described the tool as an educational and planning resource rather than a precise prediction: even under a best-case “blue sky” scenario, evacuations may take hours, not minutes.

Wysong used the Monument area as an example of local constraints: “It’s kind of on that border between unincorporated El Paso County and the town of Monument… you have only two evacuation points,” he said, noting some neighborhoods have unpaved or narrow roads and creek crossings that complicate evacuation.

Officials plan to use the model to inform exercises and “war-gaming” to identify choke points and align resources, Wysong said. He emphasized that the tool will help first responders understand realistic timelines and plan communications and routes accordingly.

The purchase and rollout aim to strengthen preparedness across the county’s western, more-forested areas, which Wysong said are at elevated risk from wildfire and other disasters such as flooding or hazardous-material incidents.

Wysong also linked the adoption of modeling to his prior community advocacy: he said years of neighborhood organizing after the Waldo Canyon Fire helped shape his focus on evacuation planning when he sought office. “I’ve been fighting for it for five years,” he said, “so I’ll take the win.”

Officials have not yet released a public timetable for neighborhood-level access or the precise capabilities that will be shared with residents; Wysong said agencies will use the tool first to train responders and then make information available to communities.