Colorado’s Wildfire Ready Watersheds Program: A state-led approach to proactive post-fire hazard planning at the watershed level
This seminar will focus on post-fire hydrologic hazards and how communities can prepare for and mitigate these hazards before fire activity occurs. Colorado’s “Wildfire Ready Watersheds” (WRW) program is administered by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB). WRW provides high-level information on potential hazards at the state level, as well as guidance, criteria, and grant funding for watershed groups to develop more detailed, local pre-fire hazard identification and mitigation plans called Wildfire Ready Action Plans (WRAPs).
Dr. Collar and Dr. Earles were part of the technical team that helped CWCB develop this program and are currently working on multiple WRAPs in Colorado. The presentation will include an overview of the WRW program and specific details on WRAP development, using examples from around the state to illustrate key lessons learned. Our goal is to teach the audience how similar proactive risk management strategies can be applied in other fire-prone communities in the western United States, including in their own communities.
Dr. Andrew Earles of Wright Water Engineers, Inc. (WWE) has worked on projects related to post-fire hydrologic hazards since the 2000 Cerro Grande in New Mexico, which posed serious risk to critical infrastructure at Los Alamos National Laboratory, including a nuclear reactor. Since then, Dr. Earles has worked on more than a dozen post-fire hydrologic hazard and risk assessments for clients across the western U.S., including assessments of watershed conditions, quantification of mud and debris flow rates and volumes for varying storm events, identification of values at risk, and related tasks. Dr. Earles recently served as the debris flow expert on a team of engineers and scientists developing a “Wildfire Ready Watershed” program for the Colorado Water Conservation Board to prepare communities for potential hazards following wildfires.
Natalie Collar, Ph.D., CFM is a Senior Hydrologist at Wright Water Engineers, Inc. (WWE), where she is an owner and current Board member. She has a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California Santa Barbara in biology and watershed science, respectively. Her dissertation focused on disturbance hydrology, particularly wildfire-induced changes to landscape processes, and her master’s thesis involved watershed-scale hillslope erosion modeling and sediment transport. At WWE she practices statistical hydrology, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, atmospheric science, stormwater management, and translating watershed mechanistic processes to practical management decision-making. She lives in Denver with her hydrogeologist husband and their new son, Shale.