Eagle Valley Wildland’s wildfire mitigation efforts show the value of collaboration between communities

Eagle Valley Wildland started with an idea and three people. It’s turned into something much bigger and has drawn attention far beyond the Vail Valley.

A group from the wildfire cooperative recently took the Eagle County Board of Commissioners on a tour of projects near Eagle. The tour was supposed to be more extensive, but time ran short.

The tour began on Eby Creek Mesa above Eagle, where a chipping truck was noisily helping create defensible space around homes there.

That program has become more successful over the past few years.

Fire operations specialist Tim Swaner said getting the word out to neighborhoods through social media channels has helped grow participation.

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Eric Lovgren, the community mitigation manager for the county, added that Eby Creek Mesa also has an active neighborhood ambassador program.

That program in May of 2024 pulled 35,000 pounds of material out of just that neighborhood, and the program rotates between neighborhoods around the valley.

Lots of neighborhood involvement

A lot of neighborhoods are involved in wildfire mitigation efforts these days. During a lengthy stop a few miles up the Brush Creek Valley, Hugh Fairfield-Smith, a division chief and fire management officer with the Eagle River Fire Protection District, noted that there are now 29 stakeholders in the Eagle Valley Wildland program. That includes fire districts, towns, metro districts, homeowner associations and other groups.

That growing partnership has led to efforts like ones that have helped with mitigation efforts on thousands of acres across the valley, from Red Cliff to Dotsero.

Looking across the Brush Creek Open Space, Fairfield-Smith noted the effects of both material removal and prescribed burning in that area.

The Brush Creek Valley is one of “28 or 29” communities that have just one way in and out in case of fire. Most mitigation focuses on those areas.

Part of that mitigation attempts to “reset the ecosystems,” Fairfield-Smith said.

That can mean both adjusting what might burn and where fire might go.

But the Brush Creek Valley and the area just uphill are very different ecosystems.

While the grassy areas of the valley might burn quickly, the heavily forested areas at higher elevations might take longer to burn, but will also take longer to control.

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A fire that spreads into heavy timber could burn until it hits Summit County, Fairfield-Smith said.

And, given current conditions, fire crews are jumping on even small fires with everything they have as quickly as possible, he added.

“We are attacking faster and harder than we ever have before,” he said. “We’re just trying to get to these things as quick as possible and subdue them as quick as possible.”

The cooperative idea behind Eagle Valley Wildland has caught on beyond the valley.

A national standard

“We have created the national standard for what a fire district and county program should look like,” Fairfield-Smith said. “And we’ve created that foundation, and we’re showing people how wildfire mitigation should be implemented.”

That mitigation goes beyond the public sector. Fairfield-Smith noted that Eagle Valley Wildland has worked with private landowners as well as towns and metro districts. The organization has also worked with the federal government at Dotsero, since that community is surrounded by federal land.

Resources are always at a premium, and federal resources may be drying up.

But Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney said the community expects the county government to participate in mitigation efforts.

At the moment, she said, “I think we’ve got a good plan, and we’re making the most of our resources and the collaboration.”

Birch Barron, the county’s emergency management director, added that if resources are shrinking elsewhere, “it makes me feel just that much better that we’re building systems locally to have that immediate response, and get those fires out while they’re small before they start impacting homes and structures.”