An example of a Fire Free Five compliant home in Vail. The town is currently encouraging homeowners to voluntarily comply with the effort to create a five-foot defensible space around all homes in town, but may make the idea into law before the end of the summer.
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This summer may someday be remembered as a pivotal moment in the town of Vail’s history.

That’s because, in the words of Vail Fire Chief Mark Novak, the town has reached a point where creating defensible space for wildfires can no longer be left to personal choice — it must be mandated by law.

At a meeting on Tuesday, Novak — along with Wildland Program Battalion Chief Paul Cada — described how 5 feet can make the difference between a home that withstands embers and one that goes up in flames. And with how close together Vail homes are built, the result of a lack of that defensible space won’t just be one person’s home igniting, it will be many.

“Suppression is not the solution,” Novak told the Town Council. “As much as we greatly appreciate the investment that the town has made in suppression resources, both in our traditional fire department and in our wildland program, it’s not one or the other, we need all of those things, we need good suppression, we need fire adaptive community, we need resilient landscapes.”

The slogan being used by the town is the “Fire Free Five.” It refers to the 5-foot-wide zone immediately surrounding buildings, which must be kept free of combustible materials and vegetation to reduce the risk of losing homes to wildfire.


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Creating a Fire Free Five around homes is currently voluntary in Vail (supported by a financial assistance program), but the town is now considering making it mandatory for all structures. A potential ordinance could come as early as August, according to the conversation had between Novak and the Town Council on Tuesday.

“The ultimate person who has responsibility for whether their home burns and whether their neighbor’s home burns is the person who owns the home,” Novak said. “So we’re at that phase in our history where we need to make that next step where everybody accepts that responsibility.”

Between 2017 and 2021, every property in Vail had a curbside wildfire evaluation completed, and 79% of the 1,532 properties surveyed in Vail were not up to the Fire Free Five standards.

The Town launched a Fund Your Fire Free Five community assistance program in 2022, offering financial help to residents who voluntarily made changes. In its first year, 22 homeowners signed on. That jumped to 39 in 2023 but dropped to 23 this past year.

Now, with most of the early adopters already on board, officials say it’s time to move from carrot to stick.

“Our structures are built close together, so they share a lot of risk. If one ignites, the likelihood of another igniting around it is really very high,” Cada said.

And in a town where so many resources are going toward creating more housing, it would be a shame to lose already existing houses to fire, Novak said.

“Wildfire is a housing problem,” Novak said. “In a community like Vail, even the loss of 100 units would be devastating.”