Hillcamp Wildfire Risk: A Community-Wide Life Safety Issue

Save the Lone Tree Bluffs
3 days ago
4 min read

The proposed Hillcamp development introduces serious and unavoidable wildfire risk - not only for future residents of Hillcamp, but for existing Lone Tree neighborhoods downslope and rural communities that surround the site. This risk is not hypothetical, and it cannot be solved through design features or construction materials.

Wildfire behavior, site conditions, evacuation constraints, and the City of Lone Tree’s own wildfire planning documents all point to the same conclusion: developing a high-density subdivision on these wind-exposed mesa tops places the entire area at risk.

Hillcamp’s Location Magnifies Wildfire Danger

Hillcamp is proposed on exposed mesa tops and bluff edges, in an area the City of Lone Tree identifies as part of the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI)—where development and wildland fuels meet. According to the City’s 2025 Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), wildfire risk is driven by four primary factors: wind, topography, fuel continuity, and access limitations. Hillcamp sits at the intersection of all four factors.

The surrounding landscape consists of continuous grasslands, scrub oak, and ravines filled with Gambel oak, all of which support rapid fire spread. These are fine fuels that ignite easily and burn fast—especially under high-wind conditions that are common along the bluffs.

Fires Move Faster Than People Can Evacuate

The wildfire behavior graphic illustrates a critical reality: grass fires move extraordinarily fast when driven by wind. Under open, wind-exposed conditions, grass fires can advance at a rate approaching 20% of wind speed. That means:

40 mph winds → fire spread around 8 mph
60 mph winds → fire spread around 12 mph
80–100 mph wind gusts → fire spread fast enough to outrun evacuation

In practical terms, this means fire can travel miles in minutes, especially across open mesa tops before dropping downslope into neighborhoods and ravines.

This is not theoretical modeling. The Hillcamp Wildfire Risk Assessment itself acknowledges that dry grasses—while producing shorter flame lengths—have very high rates of spread, particularly when wind-driven, and that fire in the surrounding ravines can move even faster due to slope and dense oak fuels.

What Mitigation Measures Do—and Do Not—Do

The developer’s wildfire materials emphasize fire-resistant building materials, buried power lines, and hydrant placement. These measures may reduce structural ignition once a fire arrives, but they do not slow wildfire spread, and they do not reduce the most dangerous phase of a wildfire event: evacuation.

Fire does not wait for hydrants. It does not slow down for fire-resistant siding. It races through grasslands and oak corridors long before suppression resources can arrive—especially during red-flag conditions.

Likewise, debates over the location of a primary access road miss the larger issue. The problem is not which road is used; the problem is how many people would need to evacuate at the same time down a steep single-lane road.

Evacuation Is a Predictable Failure Point

Wildfire evacuations are chaotic by nature. Visibility drops. Winds shift. Roads clog. Emergency responders must simultaneously protect structures, manage traffic, and rescue those who cannot self-evacuate.

Approving Hillcamp would add hundreds of households to an already constrained evacuation landscape—forcing Hillcamp residents, downslope Lone Tree neighborhoods, and rural residents to compete for limited road capacity during the same emergency.

The City’s CWPP explicitly recognizes that roadway access and evacuation capacity are critical life-safety constraints in WUI areas and that wildfire does not respect jurisdictional boundaries.

Downslope and Rural Communities Bear the Risk

Wildfire does not stop at a development boundary. A fire originating near or moving through Hillcamp would naturally move downslope, placing established Lone Tree neighborhoods and rural properties at immediate risk. These areas already contain high fuel loads, steep terrain, and limited ingress and egress, which the Hillcamp assessment itself identifies as areas of higher intensity fire behavior.

Approving Hillcamp does not isolate wildfire risk—it exports it to surrounding communities as you can see in graphic below.

Climate Conditions Make This Risk Worse, Not Better

Colorado is experiencing warmer winters, reduced snowpack, prolonged drought, and more frequent red-flag days. The City’s CWPP acknowledges that changing climate conditions are increasing wildfire frequency, intensity, and unpredictability along the Front Range.

Planning decisions must reflect today’s reality, not assumptions made decades ago under very different climate conditions.

This Is a Life-Safety Decision

This is not a design issue. It is not a mitigation checklist. It is a life-safety decision.

Approving a high-density development in this location increases the number of people exposed to wildfire risk and magnifies the consequences when evacuation fails—as history has repeatedly shown across Colorado.

The City of Lone Tree has a responsibility to protect existing residents, future residents, and first responders. Approving Hillcamp as currently proposed shifts unacceptable wildfire risk onto the broader community and creates dangers that cannot be undone.

For these reasons, the Hillcamp applications should be denied unless and until wildfire risk, evacuation capacity, and community-wide safety impacts are fully and credibly addressed.