Fourteen firefighters died in the Storm King Mountain fire west of Glenwood Springs in 1994 when 2,115 acres burned. In August 2020, the Grizzly Creek fire burned 32,631 acres along the Interstate 70 corridor east of Glenwood causing mudslides from flooding off the burned landscape that periodically closed the highway that summer.

Debris, ash, sediment and nutrients washed into the Colorado River from flooding, degrading water quality and clogging water treatment infrastructure. As murderous and dangerous as these fires were, they weren’t the worst in Colorado’s recent wildfire history.

The state has two categories for measuring fire damage: acreage and structure loss. The Cameron Peak fire west of Fort Collins in August 2020 burned 209,913 acres of timber fuel with large quantities of pine beetle-killed trees. It’s the largest burn by acreage.

It was followed in October 2020 by the East Troublesome fire that burned 193,812 acres in Grand County moving toward Rocky Mountain National Park to the east. This fire also burned detritus from pine-beetle-killed trees. But due to heat, drought and high winds, the fire raced through wetlands and riparian zones. At one point, the fire traveled 18 miles in a run to Rocky Mountain National Park reaching within 1.5 miles of the Continental Divide.

Next, on Dec. 30, 2020, the Marshall fire ignited in Superior and Louisville, burning more than 6,000 acres and destroying 1,084 residential structures, damaging 149 homes and 7 commercial structures. This fire represents the second form of fire loss: structures. The cost to rebuild Marshall structures is about $2.8 billion by insurance losses. This number doesn’t compare in size to the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles in January 2025 at roughly $40 billion, but it was big enough to shake the insurance markets in Colorado.

This year the Aspen Acres fire in Pueblo and Custer counties burned 102,400 acres and destroyed about 20% of the homes in Beulah. The total structure loss is 319 homes in the fire area representing somewhere around $125 million to $190 million.

As with other fires, the damage is not just to land. It’s to the water. The Aspen Acres fire burned across four watersheds feeding Beulah, causing damage from sediment, fire retardant, chemicals and debris. Flooding occurred shortly after the fire, killing one person.

The Hayman fire in 2002 burned 137,760 acres or 215 square miles. Its size held for 18 years until the 2020 fires hit the state. Hayman covered the South Platte River watershed, causing massive damage to infrastructure and resulting in millions of dollars of water repair as well as rebuilding 133 homes and 600 other structures. Hayman was the harbinger of what was to come.

So, as we look to the past to catch a glimpse of our future, how did the state legislature deal with all these fire disasters? Legislators responded with caution. In the 2000s, they passed “suggestions” to the public that homeowners in fire zones should clear fire-susceptible stuff five feet next to their homes. In high hazard zones, the clearing distance went up to 100 feet. Some homeowners and property rights individuals resisted the nudge based on, well, property rights but mostly cost.

Government supported mitigation and firefighting efforts cost up to $463 million between 2017 and 2023. Up to $57 million of those funds bought firefighting airplanes and helicopters and trucks.

In 2023, after the high costs of the three large 2020 fires, the legislature and the governor passed the FAIR Plan to provide insurance to individuals who couldn’t buy normal coverage. The plan cuts off at $750,000. Insurance companies doing business in Colorado have to contribute to the fund that pays out for damages. If damages exceed the fund’s bucket of money, then insurers will be assessed a surcharge.

Homeowners in high-risk areas pay a premium for this insurance but insurance companies don’t operate in a vacuum. Some extra costs may seep out to non-risk homeowners, spreading the costs into everyone’s pocketbook.

That’s one problem related to wildfire risk management — people in high-risk areas and developers in these areas don’t assume the full cost of the risk. State legislators have given counties and municipalities more control over regulating fire hazards. These entities can mandate a 5-foot clearance between landscape and homes.

The state will have to take stronger steps to universalize fire mitigation, especially involving new home construction. Often fires spread not from the racing flames but from the blowing embers landing on susceptible construction materials that should be fire-resistant.

Other factors playing into the danger come from utility companies and their downed power lines and electrical conductors that contact vegetation or debris. The Marshall fire apparently was started in one spot by a loose power line blown down by fierce winds and in another location by blowing embers from an imperfectly covered man-made debris burning.

These fire sources above and beyond the foils of nature mean more costly but necessary mitigation in the state’s future because fire history is repetitious. These requirements will come from the legislature, localities or the insurance industry, but they will come.

Paula Noonan owns CapitolCommons.ai, the state’s premier legislature-tracking platform.