By State › Colorado

Colorado: Overview

Download all of Colorado as PDF Print

Everything in the main manual and the skill guides applies in Colorado exactly as written. What’s different here is the specific hazard profile and the state, local, and legal context around it. This page is the starting point; the other three pages under Colorado go deeper on laws, local resources, and the data behind the risks named here.

The Marshall Fire: a winter grassfire, not a summer forest fire

On December 30, 2021, a fast-moving grass fire driven by extreme winds tore through the suburban Boulder County communities of Louisville and Superior, destroying 1,084 structures, nearly all of them homes, and causing more than $2 billion in damage in a matter of hours. It remains the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history by structures lost, and it happened in winter, with the fire feeding on dry grassland after an unusually wet spring followed by an extremely dry fall, not the deep summer forest fire most people associate with Western wildfire risk. See the Risks page for the full data.

Avalanches: a standing, leading risk, not a single event

Colorado has led the nation in avalanche deaths for decades, and by a wide margin: 287 fatalities between 1950 and 2023, nearly double second-place Alaska’s total. This isn’t a single disaster, it’s an ongoing, structural risk driven by the sheer volume of backcountry recreation in Colorado’s mountains combined with the state’s notoriously unstable, thin continental snowpack.

What this means for how you use the rest of this manual

The manual’s Tier structure and the skill guides apply without modification. What’s different in Colorado: wildfire evacuation planning matters year-round in grassland and wildland-urban-interface areas, not just during the conventional summer fire season, and anyone who recreates in Colorado’s backcountry during winter should treat avalanche safety training and equipment (a beacon, probe, and shovel, and the knowledge to use them) as essential gear, not optional.

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