City Council Minutes 2023 10 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes October 17, 2023 Page 3 of 13 PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS — WILDFIRE HAZARD & RISK ASSESSMENT OF LOUISVILLE PUBLIC LANDS Mayor Maloney introduced the item stating this is an informational item; no action will be taken. Director Blackmore stated this project has been in the work for over a year. This was an entire public lands assessment including parks, open space, water treatment plants, and ditches. It was done collaboratively with Public Works, Community Development, and the Fire Department. Ember Brignull, Open Space Superintendent, stated this is very important work and staff has been implementing fuels mitigation already. In 2023, staff has completed over 400 acres of fuel reduction on Open Space. This has included grazing and mowing. These efforts will continue into 2024 using the results of this assessment. The goal is to find a balance between fuels reduction and Open Space stewardship. Staff is focusing efforts on the areas of higher risk in the community and also looking to see if there are other methods we might want to adopt. Bill Szafranski, Lynker, reviewed their outreach for the project. He stated the objective is to develop a comprehensive Wildfire Hazard and Risk Assessment, including identification of hazards and risks and development of mitigation opportunities for Louisville's public lands to be more resilient against future events. This project will serve as a foundation for future mitigation efforts. They relied on the State of Colorado wildfire behavior model for the risk assessment. He reviewed the burn probability for the City. He also reviewed flame length probability which is a general indicator for fire severity. He noted the areas with a higher probability of higher flame length. He reviewed vulnerable areas and the top 10 highest wildfire risk properties. Meg Matonis, the Ember Alliance, discussed mitigation recommendations. She stated fuels mitigation is only one part of the process and won't solve all problems. She noted that there are multiple way to reduce risks and some have secondary benefits as well. The goals of this are to provide strategic recommendations to the City to mitigate wildfire risk on open spaces, parks, and other properties; to describe pros and cons of different mitigation strategies; to provide specific recommendations on where treatments should be implemented (e.g., open space, irrigated parks, public works facilities) and how the treatments should be implemented; and to provide realistic expectations of treatment effectiveness. Mitigation alternatives include prescribed burning; herbicides; grazing; seeding with native grasses; prairie dogs; broad scale mowing, targeted mowing, tree removal/pruning, defensible space and structure hardening; and irrigation. She noted the report has potential mitigation approaches on different property types in the City.