After the Fire: A Community Rebuilds

United by Fire is a nine-part narrative podcast series that takes you inside the harrowing 2020 wildfire season in Colorado through the voices of those who witnessed it firsthand. Hear from firefighters and residents who found themselves in the path of the flames, as well as ecologists, land managers, community planners and entrepreneurs who are working to build a more wildfire-resilient future. 

The series is hosted by Kristan Uhlenbrock, Executive Director of the Institute for Science & Policy. For more information and resources from this episode, check out the episode summary page. Enjoy the transcript, and to listen to the audio version visit institute.dmns.org/united-by-fire.

 

Daily Reminders  

BRENDA GRAFF: So, this is our visitor center. On one wall, we have information for the National Forest, camping, trails, rules of the forest. On another wall, we have information about what you can do in town, businesses and stuff.  

KRISTAN UHLENBROCK: I’m walking through the Grand Lake Visitor Center and talking to Brenda Graff, who works here. She’s telling me why this town has dubbed itself “The Soul of the Rockies.” 

BRENDA: This is an amazing area. It’s quieter and we don't get quite the population of tourists coming in. I mean, we get really busy, but not, not anything like Estes Park. There is so much to do in this area. We have three different waterfalls.  

KRISTAN: Grand Lake is both a town and a lake. The lake formed thousands of years ago by glaciers and is fed by the headwaters of the Colorado River. It’s popular for boating and recreation in the summer. And the fall leaf peeping is absolutely spectacular up here. The area is surrounded by National Forests and serves as the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. There are a whopping 400 year-round residents in Grand Lake, and 15,000 in the whole of Grand County.  

It's also the community most impacted by the East Troublesome Fire.  

BRENDA: And then on three of the walls, we have pictures of the fire, a little bit of information, and the fire map.  

KRISTAN: A fireman’s helmet hangs on the back wall, with a fire hose coiled beneath it. Above the reception desk, charred planks of wood are nailed in place. Framed photographs tell the story: Residents picking through ash and rubble. Burned-out cars. A fire engine driving past a wall of flame. Daily reminders of what happened. 

BRENDA: The fire did impact us, but you know, we're still open for business, and we're still here and we're still going strong 

KRISTAN: In October 2020, the East Troublesome Fire tore through Grand County and into Rocky Mountain National Park in a matter of a week, including a massive explosion on October 21, where in one day it grew 150,000 acres. It created its own weather. It destroyed more than 500 homes and structures. An older couple passed away in their home.  

Almost four years later, the community and landscape are still healing.   

BRENDA: We just have a few scars that remind us of what happened  

KRISTAN: This is United by Fire, where we explore hard truths about our landscapes and ourselves. I’m your host Kristan Uhlenbrock.

  

Eyes On Our Town 

KRISTAN: For residents of Grand County, the journey to rebuild and recover has been anything but straightforward.  

EMILY HAGEN: There wasn't a roadmap. There wasn't any one singular, or even like a handful of resources that we could go to that could say, “Oh yes, this is how you manage this, and this is how you recover.” 

KRISTAN: Emily Hagen is the executive director of the Grand Lake Chamber of Commerce, whose primary role is to bring people to the region. After the fire, she faced a daunting task. 

EMILY: Keep in mind, this was 2020. The park had been closed, no one knew what was going to happen in the tourism industry. And our economy is roughly 95 percent tourism-driven. So, you know, being in the seat that I'm in, I was really worried about our economy. But I'm also a member of our community. And I was hurting, and everyone here was hurting. None of us were okay. I mean, we had three people on staff that lost their houses, out of a staff of six. 

KRISTAN: The Chamber had just rewritten its marketing plan geared towards COVID with a focus on escaping to the great outdoors. But now they needed to talk about the fire. 

EMILY: Our whole draw had been like, this is natural social distancing. Well, when your natural social distancing burns up in a fire and it's all closed, you have to rethink how are we going to A) draw people in, B) educate them on being respectful because none of us are okay right now, and C) look at how do we recover from this? Because it was pretty clear right away that this is a marathon, not a sprint. 

KRISTAN: And to make things worse, Emily had to deal with what was becoming a disturbing trend in Grand Lake: people turning disaster into spectacle. She recounts the story of a close friend of hers who had lost everything.    

EMILY: So, I had gone into their store for something and I watched a customer come up to their counter and say, “Well, where can we go to look at burned down houses?” And, my friend was floored, and she's typically not the kind of person who is floored easily. And I just watched her eyes just fill with tears. And I, I kind of tapped that woman on the shoulder and I said, “Hey, listen, like when you're in our town, you know, um, we lost almost 400 homes. It's really tactless and hurtful to say things like that.” Because the homeowners were already getting people immediately driving by and taking pictures. 

EMILY: One resident who lost his family's settler home and his own home, and, you know, insult to injury, he's a local historian. He just, he's a very patient, gentle, kind man. He's very articulate. And he's like, "Emily, for the first time in my life, I went feral." Because I am literally digging through barely what's left over of my home.” And he's like, and I felt like I was in a zoo because there was a line of cars and people were standing there and taking pictures of me digging through the rubble of my home. And so, I just thought this is obviously a problem that we need to address.  

KRISTAN: It’s not unheard of for people to visit a place after a disaster or atrocity. It’s known as dark tourism. Think the Holocaust concentration camps, Chernobyl site, or 9/11 memorial. Researchers say it can be based on empathy, curiosity, and a desire to understand or memorialize. But it’s also part of human nature that’s driven by a fascination with tragedy, death, and sadness. 

A challenge with dark tourism is when it turns into voyeurism and hurts communities who are still reeling from the effects of a disaster. Which is why Emily realized that she needed to figure out how to give tourists an outlet for their curiosity – while also protecting her neighbors. 

That’s when she came across photojournalist Thomas Cooper, who had captured thousands of images of the East Troublesome Fire, and posted some online 

EMILY: And so, I just said, here's the deal. My community is already going to be struggling. This summer, we're going to have 1.8 million tourists here. A lot of them aren't going to know. This fire did not get a lot of media coverage. I need a way to defer them to a place where they can kind of scratch that itch to see the images and hear the stories and be reminded to stay away and give people space to grieve.  

KRISTAN: Thomas gave Emily permission to use the photos. Next, she just needed a space.  

EMILY: I approached the town board of trustees and I said, “Hey, you know, here's, here's my vision. I have really strong, powerful, almost scary, sometimes grotesque photos that I would like to put on display alongside things from people's homes.” 

KRISTAN: She had her eye on an empty building that was owned by the town. 

EMILY: I said I have no money, I don't have a space. You know, this was in an economic downturn. It was 2020. Everyone was being very cautious financially. But where you could help me is by allowing me keys to the building. I don't even need you to clean it. Just give me keys to the building. And they did. 

KRISTAN: But then came the hard part: sorting through the images. 

EMILY: I literally, like, got in bed. And I had a big glass of wine and a box of tissues. And I just sat there, and I clicked through them and I took notes and I just wept for like two days. But it's almost like that gave me a little bit of a scab to be able to complete the project.   

KRISTAN: Over the next few months, Emily curated the photos along with people’s stories. Locals got word of the project and started donating items they recovered from their homes - a charred wedding veil, a pocket-knife, jewelry and more.  

EMILY: Someone bringing us something is way more than them bringing us an object. It's them kind of bringing us a part of their heart. And if they share a story and if they bring in an object, it gets displayed because we're not going to minimize anyone's experience or feelings in this. And I think just naturally that kind of tied together. And when you walked into the room, you could feel the intention and the energy behind people providing those little glimpses into their experiences.   

KRISTAN: The East Troublesome Stories exhibit opened to the public in June 2021. A portion of it still exists at the Grand Lake Visitor’s Center today.  

For Emily, it was a success because it gave locals a space to process their emotions...a small step toward healing.  

And it also brought awareness about the risk of fire and the role of personal responsibility.  

EMILY: One of the items was brought to me by my friend Jodi, who works for Grand County Dispatch. She works with all the first responders. She brought me this little metal plaque. It has a smoky bear on it. And, that language around, like, only you can prevent forest fires. And it was all burned up and curled and melted all around the edges. And she was like, this is one of the only things we recovered. But I think you need it in your display. 

KRISTAN: But the community’s recovery is about more than just rebuilding. It’s about preventing the next fire.  

EMILY: We have so many visitors here that will still walk in and say, “Well, why is there a fire ban? We came up here for a campfire, and it's not a trip to the mountains if we're not roasting s'mores.” And once again, this gives us an opportunity to say, "This is why." This was a human-caused fire. This was avoidable. It happened during a fire ban, and it took one person making a selfish decision to do this.

 

To Build A House 

KRISTAN: In the days and weeks after Julie Knauf and her husband Paul lost their home in the East Troublesome Fire, friends and neighbors in Grand County rallied around them. You may remember Julie from our first episode. 

JULIE KNAUF: When the fire raged and people started hearing that, you know, our house was gone and stuff, I had probably easily 60 or 80 messages a day from friends, not expecting you to reply, but just the support. I have a place for you to stay. We can take your dog. Do you need food? I mean, the outreach was unbelievable. People that I hadn't talked to in years still feeling like your closest friend. 

KRISTAN: But even with support, processing grief is a twisty road.  

JULIE: It was a really tough couple of weeks. 

I remember the first time I went to the grocery store, and by the time I got to the checkout, one of my friends was working and she just looked at me. She's like, Julie, and all I could do is wave her off and grab my stuff and get out and I sat in my car and cried. And I cried and I cried for days. But everybody's calling. So you have to explain, and they care. And that's why they're asking. 

KRISTAN: She told the story of her home burning down hundreds of times in different ways. To family members. To random well-wishers. To the homeowners insurance company. To the cable provider calling to sell her services. 

JULIE: DirecTV people kept calling me saying, “Hey, are you ready to put your TV back up?” I'm like, my house is gone. I don't have a TV. I don't need a TV. Will you please make a note because I'm so tired of your company calling me and asking me when I'm ready to set up my next TV. I'll call you when I'm ready. You know, it was stuff like that. And I had to do that every day. 

So the first struggle was, I guess, finding a place to live, and the lack of housing, and the cost of housing, and the decisions that you're going to make. Should we just rent? We're probably only going to be here for a year. We're going to build. We'll be back in. We'll be able to be back on the property. 

KRISTAN: Building back after a fire comes with a slew of challenges, especially in a rural mountain community like Grand County. The site needs to be cleaned up and the debris removed. The building season is short - only about five months due to the cold weather. And then there’s working with the insurance company on the claim. Not to mention things out of anyone’s control, like the availability of contractors, inflation, housing trends, and a pandemic. 

During the pandemic, there was a surge of interest in less expensive mountain areas, including Grand County. So, wildfire survivors found themselves in competition with out-of-town renters and buyers looking to relocate, or find second homes or vacation rentals. Rents rose sharply, and some locals couldn’t afford to stay. 

For a while, Julie and Paul lived at her parents' condo nearby. Later, they found a rental house, but the rent became too expensive. Then they became locked in a dispute with their insurance company over their policy benefits. 

JULIE: How are we supposed to build? Or plan to build or create a design if we don't even know how much money they're going to give us. Building up here at that time went up, it was almost like between 500 and 625 dollars a square foot. There is no way that insurance would cover what we lost at that cost. 

The house would have been, I think that came back at 2.1 million, and we weren't anywhere near that insured, which was lesson number one. You think that, hey, if I could sell this house for $775,000 or whatever it is, that'd be great. You know, that's what I would need to walk away with. You don't think what it's going to cost you exponentially down the line. Like, we should have been insured for so much more. So whose fault is that? The insurance company for not saying, “Hey, costs are going up, we need to increase your policy?” Or us for not saying, “Oh, it'll be so much more to build the house. We need to up our insurance.” 

KRISTAN: Julie and Paul are not alone in being underinsured. About two out of three homeowners in the U.S. don’t have full replacement costs to rebuild.   

By 2023, three years after the fire, only 40% of Grand County residents who were affected had been issued permits to build.  

Like many, Julie and Paul struggled to find a contractor and design blueprints. Now, in 2024, they’re still waiting. While they have a frame for a garage, they’ve yet to break ground for their new home.  

JULIE: My husband, like his goal was for sure to be in a house by December of 2023. And I was like, no way that's not going to happen. He's like, be positive, that's going to happen. I'm like, all right, let's see if it'll happen. We were actually hoping maybe to have designs done and pour a foundation by the fall of ‘22, which we knew was probably not going to happen. So we'll think about it happening in the spring of ‘23, and then we'd have all that done, and it'll be closed in by snow, and then maybe by December we'd be framed out well enough to be able to get in, and as you can see we're still looking at a dirt hole. 

KRISTAN: For now, they’ll continue to reside in a 38-foot camper tucked on the hillside of their property.  

It works, but it’s a little cramped. And the water tanks and other systems are high maintenance. 

JULIE: We have to fill up every day. And we have to drain the hoses and put them away almost every day because it freezes almost every night up here. So that's just one more thing. We have to unwind everything, drain everything, fill up every day. We have to haul our poop out into the town to go find a dump spot because our septic melted. 

KRISTAN: There are few words that can be said to someone who’s lost almost every possession in a fire and is on a long road to recovery. But it’s probably not about words anyways. 

JULIE: Now we see some green grass. We see the aspens coming up. We used to have a whole herd of elk that would hang out on this hillside over here. I know they’re moving through. But they are not here yet because they don’t have shelter. I spooked a group of deer walking up the road with my dog and I saw a herd of almost 12 to 15. I was like, all right! You know? I found some bear tracks. That was a little too close for comfort. But you know, it's just exciting. 

We got snow up until last week, last weekend. So we had some really beautiful wildflowers starting to pop up and I think they all froze, but now we're starting to see a few more. You look out and you don't just see black and dead anymore and that helps. 

 

Canary In the Coal Mine 

KRISTAN: The cost of homeowners insurance in Colorado has increased 60% in the last five years and is now the eighth highest in the country, according to a recent study by Bankrate. This is partly due to the increasing value of homes and the number of claims from extreme weather events, like hailstorms. And the wildfire risk is driving premiums even higher. With nearly half the state’s population living in wildfire-prone areas, insurance companies are under more and more pressure. And it’s not just about rising premiums. 

KIMI BARRETT: Probably more impactful is simply people not being able to get coverage. So it's not just an increase in the coverage they already have. It's actually a dropping of the coverage itself 

KRISTAN: This is Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire researcher and policy expert with Headwaters Economics. She goes by Kimi, and you may remember her from our first episode as well.  

KIMI: Really, insurance as an industry is the process of sharing risk by design. It is about recovery. Insurance provides funds for recovery and rebuilding. It is not a predictor of risk, but rather a reflection of the risk that is already on the ground. So, it often is the canary in the coal mine simply because it is saying the risk is here already. 

KRISTAN: Kimi explains that as these events become more frequent – and severe – our policies and the insurance system are struggling to keep up. Insurance companies are dealing with more lawsuits and higher payouts. So, they’re rethinking how much risk they’re willing to take on. 

KIMI: Insurance companies have not before really been challenged to this degree across the board. There has been previous lessons learned in which, you know, a very significant earthquake triggered an insurance provider to pull out of the state of California, for example. But in terms of all these hazards increasing at a scale that many have not been prepared for, it is in itself its own crisis. 

KRISTAN: In the US, about 1 out of 13 homeowners don’t have insurance, either because they choose not to, can’t afford the premiums, or can‘t find a company willing to take on the risk. 

In response to this growing issue, the Colorado legislature passed a bill in 2023 to offer coverage to homeowners in high-risk areas who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get it. It’s known as the FAIR plan – and considered a ‘last resort’ option.  

The law hasn’t gone into effect yet because the details are still being sorted out. 

KRISTAN: Kimi says a durable answer to the insurance crisis involves smart policy levers, keeping the industry at the table, and mitigation work. 

KIMI: If we want insurance coverage to be retained in these high-risk locations, insurance companies need to see a reduction in the risk. That's the bottom line. They are a business model. They will not stay and operate in a location in which they cannot cover the costs for what a disaster would incur. 

KIMI: So it is things like land use planning regulations, building codes, subdivision standards, and zoning that can actually enforce that level of risk reduction very similar to how we address earthquakes right now. You live in a fault zone, you must meet certain building code standards. That same principle can be applied to wildfire. It's just not done widely across the board yet. 

KRISTAN: For homeowners, that means looking at how their houses are built and making changes - like installing a fire-resistant roof or clearing defensible space around their properties.  

KIMI: Do they have, for example, firewood on a deck that's made of wood surrounded by bark mulch in a dry forest that has a very high level of vulnerability to wildfire? So, looking at that very mechanically and very deliberately. 

KRISTAN: Even if an individual does the mitigation work, there’s still a need for broader buy-in.  

KIMI: The entire neighborhood has to be effectively mitigated. And that is what insurance companies need to see in order to compel them to want to continue to provide coverage is a risk reduction at a scale with which the disaster will occur. 

KRISTAN: But reaching consensus – and getting people to act – is easier said than done. And Kimi says we shouldn’t expect insurance companies to drive momentum.  

KIMI: While they can be used to encourage individual or neighborhood level mitigation, they are not the silver bullet here. They're not the panacea that will get us out of this wildfire crisis. They are a partner. They should be there at the table helping address proactive mitigation risk reduction strategies, but they are not the ones that are going to compel all of us to start taking the action needed. That must come from higher levels of government supporting community and county level efforts. 

This is done through federal investment dollars, appropriations, subsidies, grants, technical assistance. There's obviously state and regional efforts that can heavily help bolster and support this. But we know that you can't just throw money at the problem. You also need to help build capacity. 

KRISTAN: This means addressing issues of access and equity. She stresses the importance of building a system that’s easy to use, especially for people who don’t have the time or resources to navigate it.  

KIMI: There's a lot of disparity; there's a lot of disproportional impacts. Not every homeowner is going to have the economic means to replace their roof or get rid of their bark mulch. They have three different jobs. They're a single working mother. They don't have that kind of time or that kind of money to invest in the mitigation measures needed to their property. 

KRISTAN: With that are opportunities for incentives that can be broadly implemented. 

KIMI: What comes to mind for me are things like tax credits, the way we have addressed energy efficiency standards. If you rebuild your roof. Getting rid of your wood shake shingles and replace it with an asphalt composition roof or a metal roof which is wildfire resistant, then you get a tax credit.  

You know, things like homeowner disclosure statements can help increase awareness and education about parcel level risk. 

Technical assistance programs. Opportunities and incentives for homeowners or county leaders to do things a little bit differently because there's an incentive for them to do so.  

KRISTAN: Even though the response has been piecemeal at times, Colorado is working to address the issue. For example, there are some communities where an HOA requires homeowners to adhere to a certain uniform aesthetic, like using cedar shingles, which are highly flammable. And many individuals are frustrated by that.  

KIMI: They see wildfire. They smell the smoke. They are recognizing that these trends are increasing and they need to do something now and they cannot wait for federal action. 

KRISTAN: Which is why just this year, a law was passed in Colorado that throws out any language in HOA bylaws that prevents people from using fire-resistant building materials. 

KIMI: So, the action that we need to see to reduce risk on the ground is happening across the country. But there is still need for those efforts to be supported and invested in at that state, regional and federal scale. 

 

The Social Network 

KRISTAN: As we look at how we live with fire, it’s important to realize it’s not only about individual choices. A tangled web of social, environmental, and structural factors shape how people respond to the threat, especially in high-risk places like certain parts of Colorado and the West.  

So, I’m talking with Katie Dickinson, who knows a lot about the interaction of our environmental policies with our social networks.  

KATIE DICKINSON: I am an associate professor in the Colorado School of Public Health, in the Environmental and Occupational Health Department.  

KATIE: I think a lot about the ways that people interact with our environment and the way that the decisions that we make are both shaped by the environments that we live and influence our environments. So, yeah, I think a lot about environmental policy, how that kind of sets the rules of the game and how the rules of the game make it easier or harder for people to live in healthy and clean environments. 

KRISTAN: Not only does Katie research wildfire, she’s experienced it firsthand. She lives in Louisville, Colorado, a city tucked between Denver and Boulder. And in December 2021, the Marshall Fire swept out of the grasslands and became a suburban firestorm, as it jumped from house to house. The Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes and structures and became the most expensive wildfire in Colorado’s history.  

After the disaster, Katie saw her neighbors struggle not only with whether to rebuild, but how.  

KATIE: It's both the cost and the uncertainty around the costs. It wasn't clear in the immediate aftermath of the fire when people were sort of trying to make these decisions quickly about what path they were going to take, what that was going to look like for them. 

KRISTAN: Many in Katie’s community were grappling with new building codes and being underinsured, all while dealing with the emotional weight of grief and loss.  

This is why she believes in a trauma-informed approach to help communities navigate a fire’s aftermath.  

KATIE: People who have just lost everything are facing an enormous amount of uncertainty. And so anything that can be done to reduce that and give folks a sense of this is how we are concretely here for you and going to support you. That is really badly needed. 

KRISTAN: This could translate to things like providing clear and useful information, creating flexible policies and options, or helping people feel safe. Lessons that can be applied to any community trying to rebuild and recover after a disaster.   

KRISTAN: One of the main goals in wildfire management is to help communities become fire-adapted – meaning they understand the risk and take action before, during and after a fire.  

But people are complicated. For example, some communities focus on fire prevention. whereas others put more weight on fire suppression.   

And research shows that despite outreach, people don’t always take steps to reduce their exposure. Cost can often be a barrier, or they might not know the best options. Some don't want to alter their property until the very last minute, when they know a fire is imminent. Or they might hold back because Joe Schmo down the street isn’t doing anything.  

KATIE: Fires don't obey property borders. They don't know what's public land or private land. And they move through a landscape depending on the availability of fuels, in addition to things like weather patterns and wind and things like that. And so your decisions about whether or not to mitigate are maybe influenced by those risk interdependencies. Maybe your risk is higher or lower depending on what your neighbors have done. But also, we're social creatures. And so, if there's a lot of social pressure to mitigate or not, right? If people really like having that privacy and that barrier between their properties, and “I don't want you to cut those trees down.”  

KRISTAN: This creates an interesting tension. If enough neighbors have taken steps to mitigate their properties – like cutting down trees – some homeowners might not feel the pressure to do the same. Katie and her colleagues tested this idea. They went to homeowners on the Western Slope and showed them images of properties with different levels of wildfire mitigation.  

And then asked: What is the likelihood the homeowners would they pay a company to come do that work on their property.  

KATIE: In that controlled experimental setting, having more neighbors with sparse vegetation made people less likely to choose mitigation themselves. And we think that that is because of a risk freeriding kind of a story. “My neighbors have already done it, so my risk is lower and I don't think I need to do it.” 

But we know that that's a lot different than what's going on in the real world, that you didn't have to like, look at these people in the face and they weren't giving you nasty looks because they'd done their mitigation and you hadn't.   

So in a world where people aren't having these rich social connections, that if you don't know your neighbors well, then maybe this risk freeriding effect might win out. Whereas when you do have more rich social settings that we'd be more likely to see more peer pressure kinds of effects.   

KRISTAN: Beyond social influences, it’s about how we mentally process risk. Katie says humans tend to rely on recent experiences when making decisions. It’s known as the availability bias. 

KATIE: So for risks that I can call to mind, something that's concrete and I know somebody who just tripped and fell, so I'm more careful when I'm walking, right? When we have salient examples of a risk, we take it more seriously. So, on the one hand, those near misses, right, seem like they should push us in the direction of taking the risk more seriously. On the other hand, it may feel like maybe my risk actually is lower if my house survived this fire. 

KRISTAN: Along with our lived experiences, the complexity of our brains and emotions makes it hard for us to build fire-adapted communities. Uncertainty and fear can paralyze or misguide people. That’s why clear, empathetic communication is so important. Katie says practitioners should customize their messaging to community values. And make the connection between those values and mitigation behavior. 

KATIE: When we have problems like wildfire that affect rural areas that might have more self-reliance, individual responsibility, libertarian kinds of values, a message that is emphasizing ‘Do this for the greater good’ may not resonate as much as, ‘People need to do their part to be responsible stewards of the land that they care for, the nearby communities that they care for.’  

KRISTAN: Social science tells us there’s no single approach that works. Whether it’s working with an individual, a community, or at a societal level, engaging people and helping them adapt is like being a tailor and knowing your customer. 

KRISTAN: The choices we make today can make us more resilient in the future. But a lot of that depends on the policies we put in place and the social networks we belong to. 

KATIE: We all care about other people, regardless of political affiliation. In some ways it may be sort of how big we draw that circle. Is it our immediate family and our kin network that is what we care about? Or is it going to be compelling to us to hear a message that talks about the collective, right? I think that's really important for this work because understanding how those cultural values and the way that we understand our role in a bigger society varies a lot.

 

A Community's Resilience 

EMILY: I watched us over the course of four years deal with this on our own terms in different ways.   

KRISTAN: This is Emily Hagen again, reflecting on the East Troublesome Fire. 

EMILY: My youngest son, who was nine at the time, carried around a backpack with supplies for like a month after we got home because his level of trust, of being safe, was gone. Navigating that as a mom, terrible. I compartmentalized my work. I dealt with my family first. And I think a lot of us did that, you know. So, when we were looking as like the public facing community, we were resilient, we were working hard, we were running businesses. Every business here is locally owned, you know. So, people are like, we have to show up to work. People would leave work and then go to their friend's house and help clean up. You know, often times you're resilient not by decision, but by force. 

KRISTAN: Surviving a wildfire is about more than just escaping the flames. It’s about rebuilding. It’s about being prepared for the future. But just as importantly, it’s about finding a way through trauma and healing.  

EMILY: For me personally, I didn't fully let myself process those emotions and let them exit my body until about a year later. And when it happened, it slammed into me. It was really like the universe was like, it's time. You need to let that go.  

KRISTAN: Some survivors face a lengthy recovery, grappling with both physical and mental challenges – everything from sleep disorders and smoke exposure to post traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt.   

And it’s not just individuals who suffer. It’s entire communities. There’s the loss of homes, businesses, infrastructure, and landscapes. The displacement of friends and neighbors. And the emotional toll that comes from losing your sense of safety.   

EMILY: You don't know that you're being strong and resilient and pacing yourself until you look back. 

We are a resilient, tough, pretty gritty in a graceful way, kind of community. And I'm going to forever remember the fact that I watched people that I know hate each other. Because this is a small town. And I'm like, I know you two hate each other. And you are here helping each other. Because at the end of the day, when you're going to get through something tough, that's what community does. 

KRISTAN: This is United by Fire. Up next, we dive into how wildfires impact one of our most valuable resources in Colorado: water. 

TONY CHENG: So, when you turn on your water, where does your water come from? It comes from the high forested mountains of Colorado. 

ESTER VINCENT: Most people don't think about it. They turn on the faucet, water comes out. We can't operate this way anymore. Wildfires and forest health have become huge focus areas for source water protection and resilience of water supplies in general. 

Credits

KRISTAN: Laws of Notion is a production of the Institute for Science and Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. To learn more visit lawsofnotion.org. 

I’m your host Kristan Uhlenbrock. This episode was produced by me, Carson Frame, and Tricia Waddell with support from Nicole Delaney, and fact-checking by Kate Long. Sound design by Seth Samuel. Original music by Ryan Flores. For a full list of credits, check out the show notes.  

To listen to the audio version, or for more information and additional resources on wildfires in Colorado, please visit institute.dmns.org/united-by-fire.

Check out all the seasons of the Laws of Notion podcast at lawsofnotion.org. 

  

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Next episode: Black Water