Colorado Fire Victims Embrace Politics to Spur Change Amid Disaster Aftermath
Rewritten Article:
In the suburbs of Boulder, Colorado, fire survivor Kyle Brown found himself backed into a corner as the one-year anniversary of the Marshall Fire approached. His own home had managed to escape the costliest and deadliest fire in the state's history, but hundreds of his neighbors had lost everything, with damages reaching over $2 billion and more than a thousand structures destroyed.
Despite his best efforts to help the victims, recovery seemed stuck in the mud. Displaced residents struggled to secure insurance payouts, rebuild their homes, and keep up with jacked-up rents in the area. The City Council, supposed to aid these victims, was embroiled in a dispute with them over whether they should pay local taxes on building materials.
In desperation, Brown saw a chance to make a difference when the incumbent state representative in the area resigned. He threw his hat in the ring as her replacement, hoping to be the change that the community needed.
Remarkably, what transpired next offers a rare example of disaster recovery success in the U.S. After securing a seat in the state legislature as a Democrat, Brown teamed up with a well-organized group of survivors to pass a suite of ambitious bills that put Colorado at the forefront of responding to climate disasters.
These survivors, often vocal and well-resourced, became Brown's partners in creating bills based on their recommendations and needs. Over the next two years, they leant their expertise and knowledge, allowing them to tweak and strengthen the legislation to their advantage.
This collaboration, however, wasn't just about political savvy – it was the result of a group of survivors who were organized and militant, advocating tirelessly for their rights and pushing for change.
"We needed to accelerate the pace of recovery, so I just listened," Brown explained in an interview with Grist. "I took notes on everything they said, and I turned it into bills."
While this model could offer hope to other disaster-prone areas, it's worth noting that it was only possible due to several well-heeled Marshall Fire victims who had the resources to organize and push for change after the fire – a luxury many communities don't have.
The Marshall Fire was unlike other massive forest fires that plague Northern California or the desert blazes that rage across Texas and New Mexico. Instead, it ripped down from the Front Range in December of 2021, vaporizing a fast-growing, affluent segment of the Denver metroplex. This unique blend of urban and firestorm environments brought about challenges that other locations had yet to encounter.
One of those survivors was a patent lawyer named Tawnya Somauroo, who was infuriated when she learned that Louisville had not issued an evacuation order for her subdivision, which largely burned in the fire. Determined to get answers, she spent months doggedly pursuing the mayor's office and local law enforcement, only to encounter a degree of resistance.
Seeing the chaos unfold on local Facebook groups, she took a less common approach: she downloaded Slack, the messaging platform usually used in white-collar workplaces, and invited hundreds of locals to join her there. Fire survivors shared information, experiences, and strategies on rebuilding, filing insurance claims, and navigating federal aid processes.
Meanwhile, a former Boulder resident named Jeri Curry moved back to the area from Virginia to help with the long-term recovery. Together with a group of volunteers, she established a long-term recovery center in an office park, offering free food, computer access, and guidance on filing insurance claims and applying for FEMA aid.
In the face of opposition from city officials, the survivors' group and Brown, acting as their representative in the state legislature, teamed up. Although he was new to property insurance and housing law, Brown relied on Somauroo's expertise, allowing her and the other survivors to guide the bills he wrote and introduced.
Their collaboration soon led to several laws that provided immediate financial relief to fire survivors, who had been struggling to rebuild. For instance, Brown passed a bill that stopped mortgage servicers from withholding insurance payments from customers waiting to rebuild, eliminating a delay that held many survivors back for months. Other bills gave survivors grants for rebuilding with fire-safe materials, provided rebates on construction material taxes, and studied smoke and ash damage – all of which sailed through the legislature with ease.
"It feels really good to be heard," said Somauroo. "I would just brief him on, like, people with this problem, that problem, that problem, and he would move the bill forward."
Beyond assisting Marshall survivors, Brown and the survivors' groups addressed other institutions that hindered fire recovery. Somauroo, in particular, rallied against homeowners' associations in Louisville, which maintained design rules that prohibited residents from replacing the flammable wooden fences that had fueled the fire. Her subdivision had a decades-old deed covenant that theoretically allowed any resident to be sued for rebuilding with a fire-resistant fence. She took her concerns to Brown and he drafted a bill that prohibited HOAs from impeding a fire-safe rebuild.
One of Brown's most formidable challenges was against rental property owners, whom he accused of price gouging after the fire. Some renters reported increased rents of up to 15%, as displaced homeowners competed with existing tenants for the limited number of available units. This followed a similar trend seen in California years earlier.
While there is a simple legislative solution to address price gouging – banning apartment owners from raising rents after a fire – few jurisdictions have implemented such policies. However, earlier this year, Brown passed a strong bill that prohibits price gouging after fires, with some Republican support.
Many of the bills Brown introduced faced initial criticism from insurers, banks, and landlords, who all had a long-standing presence in the Capitol. Despite this opposition, the survivors' group, which had become a political lobby, twisted the bills in response to industry criticism and ensured lawmakers knew they were watching their votes.
While not everyone is content with the legislative response, it's clear that the Marshall Fire survivors secured a far bigger response than the victims of past Colorado fires. The district adjacent to Brown's had suffered another disaster when the East Troublesome Fire raged through the mountain town of Grand Lake, leaving hundreds of underinsured residents in its wake. Because of the Marshall Fire, that district's representative, Judy Amabile, was able to push through the bill that Amabile designed to help the East Troublesome survivors, demonstrating the far-reaching impact of the Marshall Fire.
Somauroo and Curry, two of the driving forces behind the post-fire organizing efforts, acknowledge that the high education and income levels in the Marshall-affected cities allowed the recovery efforts to progress faster. Two and a half years after the fire, almost half of the displaced homeowners have returned to their homes, a higher rate than many other communities have achieved after disasters of similar magnitude – though this success can be attributed in part to the community's resources, as well as their political clout.
Ultimately, the sound of the shovels hitting the ground serves as a testament to the resilience of the survivors and the power of community advocacy. The benefits of the new laws are not limited to the Front Range: mortgage-servicer delay and rent-gouging laws will only apply to survivors of future fires, which are far more likely to start in the state's rural mountain communities than in the suburbs of the Front Range. So, while Democrats may have pushed the bills through, the benefits will reach Republican sections of the state – and Brown and Somauroo have conversations with people in other states about authoring similar bills.
This story is a remodeled version of the original article published in Grist, covering the efforts of fire survivors and their representatives in the Colorado State Legislature to address the recovery and prevention of wildfires. For more updates and climate solutions stories, please visit Grist.
- The future recovery of Coloradans affected by the Marshall Fire may be positively influenced by the technology of communication platforms like Slack, as it has facilitated the sharing of information, experiences, and strategies among fire survivors.
- Despite the massive damages caused by the fires, the costs weighed heavily on the affected residents, with many struggling to secure insurance payouts, rebuild homes, and cope with increased rents.
- In an attempt to speed up the pace of recovery, state representative Kyle Brown, a councilman from Boulder, Colorado, has joined forces with a group of fire survivors to put Colorado at the forefront of responding to future climate disasters.
- TheColorado State Legislature is currently weighing numerous ambitious bills aimed at providing financial relief to fire survivors, promoting the use of fire-safe materials in rebuilding, and studying smoke and ash damage.
