Plan for your own wildfire evacuation with the Aspen Fire Department

Wildfire season is here, and according to the Environmental Defense Fund, with climate change continuing to warm the planet, wildfires are expected to get more severe and last later into the season than in years prior.

Even with the abundant firefighting resources in the valley, wildfires are unpredictable and rapidly evolving. First responders will do everything to save lives and property, but as stated in the Aspen Fire Department’s (AFD) wildfire evacuation plan, “We cannot save you. Your survival is your responsibility. In a wildfire, our limited resources will be focused on suppressing the fire. It is your responsibility to be informed and highly self-reliant.”

On June 22, Aspen will host an emergency evacuation campaign to help people develop plans for their evacuation in the event of an emergency. The event will take place from 9 a.m. to noon in the Aspen Fire Station at 420 E. Hopkins Ave. Visitors can also sign up for emergency alerts through the city to get advanced notice in the event of an emergency.

“Evacuation is a really dynamic and nuanced issue,” Ali Hammond, the director of Community Wildfire Resilience, said. “It would be difficult to evacuate the town on short notice.”

One thing Aspen has done to improve their evacuation plan is to work with Ladris Technologies Inc., a company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create an up-to-date simulation of how long it would take to evacuate the town. It uses data on traffic flows and patterns to figure out how long it would take to evacuate town depending on how many people are here.

Alongside Ladris’ AI, the local fire districts also use Pano AI cameras to detect smoke quickly and help professionals determine how fire will spread. It mitigates the need to send personnel deep into the backcountry to scout out possible small fires. There are currently four cameras in the Aspen Fire Protection district and several more in the surrounding districts. Besides the measures currently in place, most wildfire mitigation falls on the individual.

“What it comes down to is homeowners and residents taking initiative and knowing what to do; there’s only so much that we can do,” Hammond said.

Aspen offers free risk assessments where a trained firefighter will come to your property and assess weaknesses and try to educate homeowners on how to further fireproof their property. Part of the upcoming event will be educating people on how to address their home ignition zone — the area around a house that could become compromised in the event of a fire.

“We want to encourage people to start addressing things like their home ignition zone and start thinking about questions like, ‘Do I have to get a new roof? What type of roof should I get?'” Hammond said. “We want to start making those changes and phasing into a resilient community model.”

Aspen Fire wants people to be well-educated on what safe procedures are and where to go in case people must evacuate. If you are told by a first responder that evacuation is necessary, people are told to evacuate immediately. If you lose power or communication, are in doubt of whether or not to evacuate, or feel you would be safer if you do so, you are also urged to evacuate immediately. Visitors can be taught about what to pack in a go-bag, namely what documents, medications, and other survival supplies. Firefighters can also talk about where the safest areas are in the event you can’t evacuate or are caught by a fire during an evacuation. 

Another important consideration is how to help with the evacuation of pets, the elderly and children, or disabled. Part of the event will be pre-planning evacuation routes and communicating with jeopardized neighbors who would need help evacuating.

“If there was an evacuation, what would you need with you?” Hammond asked. “We want to make sure that people are thinking about their prescriptions, their glasses, and do their pets have a couple days worth of food with them? Are there any documents that you’re going to need like your passport or social security card? What are the things that you can think about ahead of time so it’s not a last minute scramble.”

In the case where someone is caught in the open during an evacuation or can’t evacuate and needs to flee their home, they are recommended to go to an open area far from tall trees that could ignite or fall over. The area should have short, irrigated, or maintained grass and be far from large ignition sources. These areas include golf courses, irrigated ski-runs, or parking lots. The goal is to lower the chances of an ember being blown by the wind and igniting the ground; embers can travel over one mile in the wind.

“Another point of the event is to have some experts in the room so that people can voice their questions, anxieties, and get some feedback,” Hammond said.

For a full evacuation plan with more information on how, when, and where to evacuate to as well as what to bring, visit the AFD’s wildfire evacuation plan at aspenfire.com/wildfire-evacuation.