The WUI is often further distinguished into two WUI types based on housing densities:
- Interface: High-density development adjacent to undeveloped wildland vegetation.
- Intermix: Lower-density housing mingled with undeveloped wildland vegetation.
— from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, August 2023.
Historically speaking, Pagosa Springs was founded on the timber industry, with the largest portion of the working population employed in harvesting trees and manufacturing lumber products. The industry faded away in the 1970s.
50 years later, our forests have changed from a profit center into a massive problem.
At the February 16 meeting of the San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership [SJHFHP], we had heard some comments from Partnership founder Matt Ford about the recent evolution of property insurance in Colorado — and its possible future.
His conclusion: we will be paying more in the future.
I shared this map in Part Two, courtesy the University of Wisconsin, showing the areas in Archuleta County where property exists in the ‘Wildland Urban Interface’ and is potentially threatened by wildfire. The yellow and orange areas:
Following Mr. Ford’s commentary, Archuleta County Commissioner Veronica Medina weighed in.
“I was in Washington DC last week. I just got back, and I was able to go to the Capitol and talk to legislators, senators, and we actually talked about the insurance issue — because, it has been affecting Archuleta County. Especially this past year. I have definitely heard residents saying they haven’t been able to get insurance, or it’s too expensive.
“And then, obviously, with the [property tax] valuations, when they went up, the insurance company then turned around and said, ‘Now you have to pay more, because your house is valued at more.
“So all those things… and to top it off, Archuleta County had ten fires last year? I don’t think we lost a single structure — but because we had ten fires, the insurance companies are looking specifically at Archuleta County, saying, ‘It’s too big of a risk; we don’t know whether we want to insure anybody.’ So having these conversations with legislators and senators about what we need here in Archuleta County, we want to make sure that the resident, or the homeowner, is insured. The County government doesn’t want to cover the insurance company’s loss, right? And so we talked about different solutions, and what we kept coming back to was, ‘Whatever you come up with, you better make sure that it covers the homeowner, and the homeowner’s loss. Without having to pay a substantially higher premium…”
We will note that, here in America — in most cases — homeowners insurance is not only protecting the homeowner’s investment; the insurance is also covering the mortgage lender’s investment. So a lack of insurance availability has huge implications for the ability of Pagosa Springs to build mortgage-funded housing, and in general, to grow economically.
In particular, we might find ourselves concerned about the inability to finance workforce housing.
We also know that, when it comes to federal legislation — despite the earnest advocacy by county commissioners — the insurance industry is pretty much guaranteed to benefit more than the homeowners.
But I would say there’s a Catch 22 in this mix. If an insurance company expects to pay out $500 million when a massive wildfire sweeps through Pagosa Springs, they will want to collect more than $500 million in advance, from somebody. Who is that somebody?
Commissioner Medina continued:
“I reminded them, we are a rural community. And one size does not fit all… from Louisiana to Montana to Colorado, we’re different. And the insurance companies are looking at all of us as ‘the same’. So they are, across the board, making those increases…”
Commissioner Medina also discussed the future of ‘biomass’ with the legislators in Washington.
We have an interesting situation here in Archuleta County, regarding biomass. The current policies around forest management and wildfire prevention include recommendations that federal and state foresters and private land managers aggressively reduce the amount of fuels in our highly flammable forests.
But if you are intentionally taking biomass out of the forest… where do you put it?
Here in Pagosa, one of the local companies focused on helping thin our forests is Forest Health Timber Products, located near the county airport on Cloman Boulevard. The company’s initial business plan, ten years ago, was innovative and seemed plausible.
1. Obtain contracts from private land owners and from the Forest Service to remove smaller trees, thus reducing dangerous fuels.
2. Grind the trees into wood chips.
3. Burn the wood chips to create local electricity.
4. Sell the electricity to La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) customers.
The business model proved impossible, however, because LPEA is under contract with Tri-State Generation and Transmission for electricity purchases, and Tri-State nixed the deal with Forest Health Timber Products, since it would reduce the amount of electricity Tri-State could sell to LPEA.
Forest Health Timber Products has continued to work with the Forest Service to do tree thinning, but now primarily converts the trees into lumber instead of wood chips.
Here’s where we’re trying to end up. A fire-resistant old growth forest:
But here’s what our forests typically look like in 2024.
Are we heading in the right direction?
The insurance companies apparently don’t think so.
Commissioner Medina told the group that certain Colorado leaders are holding up a forestry plan developed by the state of Utah as worthy of emulation by Colorado.
“Then they also made a statement that ‘prescribed fire’ is the best treatment and most effective for the money spent. I know a few people I’ve talked to about prescribed fires, who are wholeheartedly opposed to prescribed fire in our community. One, for the pollution of the air, and two, they feel like there’s a better use for those trees…”