Some 9,000 homes sit just west of Boulder city limits in Boulder County’s fire zone number one — the area most vulnerable to wildfire.
So in January of last year, the county rolled out a program called Wildfire Partners, a group of specialists tasked with helping these residents assess vulnerabilities in their property and do work — from large jobs like cutting trees and replacing combustible siding, to small-scale jobs like installing metal flashing at the base of the home, enclosing open space under decks and replacing roof vents — to better protect their homes against wildfire.
But by summertime, after completing some 450 onsite assessments of at-risk homes, the staff at Wildfire Partners began to field calls from program participants saying they couldn’t find contractors willing to do the small-scale work necessary to earn the homeowner a certification from the Wildfire Partners program — certifications that can sometimes keep residents from losing their homeowners’ insurance.
“The first year, we didn’t get the fact that there wouldn’t be contractors that would just pop up,” says Holly Muree Bonine, Wildfire Partners project manager and advisor. “We all just assumed we’d be creat ing a market space; homeowners would be contacting handymen and it would sort of get filled.”
In order to receive certification, homeowners must complete all suggested retrofits and tree removal. However, some retrofits are too small for contractors but too overwhelming for a homeowner with no background in home improvement.
Bonine says it’s simply not profitable for wellestablished contractors to drive around mountain communities and do small jobs.
“The conversations I’ve had with these bigger contractors, it just doesn’t seem like they are giving us any thought,” Bonine says. “What we need, and I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, is the one small contractor who has a lot of experience in a lot of small jobs, and is willing to fill up a truck with materials and do these small jobs.”
In an attempt to fill this void in the market place, Wildfire Partners hosted a wildfire mitigation home retrofit workshop on Jan. 22 for handymen, contractors and homeowners. Bonine says in previous work with Boulder County’s Energy Smart program, a similar situation arose in which homeowners needed small work done to qualify for the Energy Smart certification, but couldn’t find contractors willing to do it.
“And there was this one guy who stepped up and went to one of these [types of ] workshops and he ended up creating this incredibly successful business. We’re hoping the same thing will happen [with wildfire home retrofits],” Bonine says.
Yet at least some of the recent workshop participants admit they are hesitant to take on the kind of work Wildfire Partners is telling homeowners they need.
“I’ve had a few calls for this kind of work and I’ve looked at their places and said, ‘You could do this yourself — I charge too much,’” says Stephen Strand, who has operated Stephen Strand Handyman in Jamestown for more than 20 years. “I’d rather do more creative work instead of crawling around on my hands and knees with roofing tar.”
Still, Strand says Wildfire Partners’ suggested retrofits are “sound ideas” and he hopes that residents living in fire-prone areas will get the work done, because at the end of the day, these folks risk losing their homeowners’ insurance.
“The insurance companies are doing whatever they can to un-insure people, especially with all the fires we’ve had,” he says.
“We don’t really understand the motivation behind insurance companies because they aren’t totally upfront with us about why they’re doing what they’re doing,” Bonine says. “But in 2014 we saw a big increase of letters to homeowners threatening dropping insurance.”
Edmund Budde and his wife participated in the Wildfire Partners program last year after Allstate threatened to drop their homeowners’ insurance.
“Last summer I was sitting on my deck and this guy was walking through my yard taking photos. I said, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’” Budde says. “He said … ‘I take photos and send them back to Allstate and they decide whether you can keep your insurance or not,’ and about a month later I got a letter from Allstate saying they were going to cancel my insurance. And I called [Allstate] up right after that and said, ‘Tell me what I have to do to not lose my insurance.’”
Budde says Allstate told him to “do whatever you can to mitigate the forest fire.”
“There’s very little rhyme or reason to it,” Bonine says. “[Insurance companies] don’t have a clear answer about how homeowners can get out of the situation. They don’t give them a clear process a lot of times and homeowners are very confused about what to do.”
Bonine says Allstate accepts Wildfire Partner certificates, and State Farm and Farmers are currently “having conversations” about accepting certificates.
“I tell everyone who has a certificate to send it and see what happens, [no matter what insurance company they use],” Bonine says.
By making Wildfire Partners a long-term program, Bonine says she hopes the foothills community will begin to think about more than just cutting trees when it comes to protecting homes from wildfire.
“It’ll get ingrained in the foothills community living, like, ‘OK I live in the foothills, I have to not just think about my trees but my roof and my gutters and my fencing,’” she says.
As for finding contractors to do the work, Bonine says that she hopes the workshop will create movement in the stalled certification process for homeowners who’ve used the Wildfire Partners program.
“We have people from last year who are ready to go and are waiting for contractors,” she says. “We’re about to generate 500 or more people who are looking for contractors.”
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