Fireproofing Your Life

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When the Marshall fire ripped through a suburban landscape as if it were tinder-dry grassland back in December 2021, we wrote about the tremendous initial outpouring of community support.¹ By late January, “Officials had to send out a plea to stop sending food and clothing to shelters, police, and fire stations.” Public generosity was overwhelming. Heartwarming. No amount of community spirit, however, could ever undo the damage and disruption to so many lives. Even now, all these years later, many are still recovering and may never get back to where they were.

So what is better than coming together after a disaster? Easy. Preventing the disaster. Our neighbor Carolyn Wolfrum tells what she decided to do now that she found some free time. You might have guessed already: it’s to fireproof her house, of course!

By Carolyn Wolfrum

As I said in my last article, my kids are off to college!  So far I’ve done well with this empty nester thing!  My kids are doing well and that’s all I need. People keep asking me what I will be doing now that I am an empty nester.  One very important thing on my list of things to do is hardening my house to prevent any out of control wildfires from damaging or destroying my home.

I am a member of the West Metro Fire and Rescue Board of Directors.  I am proud to say that West Metro is providing incredible leadership when it comes to learning and doing all they can in order to prevent damage or destruction to homes and property due to any wildfires. 

On July 1, 2025, the State of Colorado enacted a Wildfire Resiliency Code.  Jefferson County has also enacted its own Wildfire Resiliency Code. After much deliberation, Lakewood City Council adopted the same code that the State of Colorado created.

This means that homeowners will need to make a few changes in order to make their homes more wildfire resistant.  I want to write about the changes I plan on making.  The new code requires the first 0 to 5 feet from your home be hardened.  What does that mean?  It means that the materials used to cover your home’s surface should be non combustible.  This applies to all homes.  

I have a few things I need to do.  I need to remove quite a bit of mulch.  I have to move quite a few plants that are right next to my house at least 5 feet, if not more, away from my house. I need to figure out a better place for my garbage cans, which can be combustible.  We have two large trees in our yard.  They need to be pruned so that branches are 10 feet away from our home. We have a wooden fence, which I will have to figure out what to do with.  We only put that fence in a few years ago.  However, it was wooden fences that were in large part responsible for the Marshall Fire in December of 2021 spreading as quickly as it did and destroying so many homes. Fences within 8 feet of a home are required to be built out of non combustible materials.

It seems like a lot to do AND in this time where the entire year is now wildfire season, it is imperative that I and other homeowners take these important steps to ensure that homes in our neighborhood can keep wildfires from severely damaging or destroying what for many is the biggest investment they will ever make. 

Carolyn Wolfrum has been a Southern Gables resident since 2002, and is an itinerant teacher of the Deaf for Jeffco Schools. She loves working in her garden, running, bike riding, reading and traveling. She participates in fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and other worthy causes, and recently biked 100 miles with a goal of completing the Denver Century Bike Ride. She is Vice President of the West Metro Fire Protection Board of Directors, and a member of the Neighborhood Association Board as well. Carolyn is in charge of the Southern Gables Book Club, and reminds us that the book for November is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towle. 

Theme photo at top by Bartek Zakrzewski, and inset photo by TheTastefulMind, both from Pixabay.

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