In the lead-up to the Nov. 4, 2025, election, Boulder Reporting Lab asked each of the 11 city council candidates to answer our questionnaire. Their answers are presented in a random order, but you can jump to each candidate’s responses (listed alphabetically by last name): Matt Benjamin, Lauren Folkerts, Rachel Rose Isaacson, Rob Kaplan, Max Lord, Montserrat Palacios Rodarte, Jenny Robins, Nicole Speer, Rob Smoke, Aaron Stone and Mark Wallach.
Read all the responses as they’re published here. Check out the BRL Election Guide here.
Earlier this year, the Boulder City Council approved new requirements to make homes in fire-prone parts of the city more resilient to wildfires. New homes must now have a five-foot buffer of noncombustible material around the structure. Planting junipers is banned. Fences and gates within eight feet of a home must be built from noncombustible materials. For now, these standards apply only to new construction and major remodels in Boulder’s designated wildland-urban interface (WUI).
Some councilmembers have said the rules don’t go far enough. Because the regulations affect only new builds and certain renovations, older homes remain unprotected, potentially putting at risk whole neighborhoods and even homes already hardened against fire.
Most candidates said Boulder should require existing homes to meet wildfire-hardening standards. Several said such mandates should come with financial support and technical help for homeowners. Opponents of retroactive rules cited the financial burden of compliance.
Question: Should the city require wildfire mitigation and home hardening — such as a five-foot buffer of noncombustible material around the home, or banning wood fences and gates within eight feet of a home — for existing homes? Please answer yes or no, and then explain.
Nicole Speer
I have consistently supported wildfire mitigation and home hardening, without retroactive mandates on existing homes. Requiring upgrades like noncombustible buffers or banning wood fences without a remodel or rebuild places a significant financial burden on homeowners and small landlords, especially working families and people on fixed incomes. My own family went through a wildfire assessment, and it took us over a year to save enough money to begin making changes. That experience deepened my understanding of the emotional and financial weight these upgrades carry.
When I talk with Boulder’s fire chief and planning department leaders, they consistently say that if they had $100 to spend on wildfire prevention, they’d put $95 toward education. Mandates without financial support and technical assistance risk pushing people to build without permits, which undermines safety and leads to punitive measures. Wildfire prevention requires education and buy-in, especially as so many in our community are struggling economically.
I support incentive-based programs, public outreach, and neighborhood coordination. I’ve backed funding for wildfire mitigation, curbside assessment, and financial assistance to help property owners adopt best practices voluntarily. Wildfire resilience is essential and urgent and we have limited resources to address it. That’s why we must pursue evidence-based policies.
Montserrat Palacios Rodarte
We should have minimum standards that make sense and can be implemented. For example, the five-foot buffer of noncombustible material is simple and quite impactful. At the same time, we should not be banning wood fences and gates as that can create a hard financial burden for residents and these structures are already part of the functionality of their home (i.e. protect pets and provide privacy). There is no single silver bullet to prevent wild fires from spreading, we need to have a vast tool-kit and work together with Boulder’s fire-department, experts and State Officials.
Rob Kaplan
Yes. With my working experience in the wildland urban interface (WUI) for over 18 years, it is clear that without retroactive requirements, the International WUI code is just a piece of paper with words, not a tool for real change. To truly protect our community, I would recommend phasing in the code with three basic and effective measures for existing homes, all of which can be substantially subsidized through the city’s $2,000 WRAP program and the county’s $500 rebate. These measures are: limbing tree branches up to six feet from the ground, installing 1/8-inch mesh on all passive venting to keep embers out, and creating a five-foot noncombustible perimeter around the home. These steps are practical and cost-effective, and they give firefighters a better chance to protect homes and save lives during a wildfire.
Jenny Robins
Yes. Wildfire is an equitable disaster and it will take everything in its path without discrimination. If we don’t fire-harden now, the people who will suffer the most are our most vulnerable residents. I believe the city needs to expand wildfire mitigation beyond just new construction and additions, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t put a crushing financial burden on homeowners or rental property owners. That means focusing first on strong incentive-based programs like rebates, grants, neighborhood cost-sharing, and partnerships with insurers and the county so people have real support to retrofit. We should also phase requirements in over time and provide extra resources for low- and middle-income households. The goal is to build resilience across the entire community, not just for those who can afford it.
Rachel Rose Isaacson
Yes. Wildfire risk is one of the greatest threats facing Boulder, and the areas at the highest risk could require mitigation and home hardening as a critical step in protecting lives, homes, and our community as a whole. That said, I believe these requirements must be paired with strong support systems so that the burden doesn’t fall unfairly on homeowners, especially those with limited resources. This means exploring subsidies, grants, and technical assistance to make compliance realistic and equitable.
As someone who has worked on resilience and ecological stewardship, I see this as both a safety measure and an opportunity to build smarter, more sustainable systems. Clear standards such as defensible space around structures and fire-resistant materials can drastically reduce community-wide risk. But enforcement must go hand in hand with education, collaboration, and financial support.
Ultimately, my approach is to treat wildfire mitigation not as an individual responsibility alone, but as a shared commitment to community safety.
Mark Wallach
The current ordinance will apply to approximately 200 homes per year. With more than 47,000 residential units in Boulder, the time required to fully harden the City is more than 200 years. Obviously, this will not do.
As a Council, we determined that we would not impose the expense upon homeowners of requiring that they rip out their existing junipers (although I believe everyone should). However, requiring a defensible space around homes is, I believe, a less onerous and still effective fire mitigation measure. In addition, all junipers should be limbed up 5-6 feet, and trimmed so that they do not touch the house. Certainly, wood fences should be prohibited going forward, or at the very least prohibited where the fence touches the house. Boulder is in the 97th percentile for fire danger in Colorado. We need to recognize that and respond to it.
In some ways, this is a more significant danger than the flood danger that affects our community. Flooding will occur on exceptional occasions; one careless lit cigarette can cause a conflagration on any given day, and the time for evacuation may be very brief indeed. In light of climate change, and the prospect of a drier environment, we ignore this danger at our peril. Just ask the residents of Superior.
Matt Benjamin
Yes. I support requiring wildfire mitigation and home hardening measures for existing homes because the risk of wildfire in Boulder is too urgent to ignore. The Marshall Fire showed us that fire doesn’t stop at the wildland–urban interface; it can sweep through neighborhoods and destroy lives and property in minutes.
Science shows that steps like creating a five-foot buffer of noncombustible material around homes or limiting combustible fencing near structures dramatically improve survivability. These are practical, proven measures that reduce the likelihood of homes igniting from embers or spreading fire between properties. I also recognize these requirements may create financial and logistical challenges for homeowners, particularly in denser neighborhoods. That’s why I believe mandates must be paired with education, phased timelines, and financial assistance programs such as grants, rebates, or low-interest loans.
This ensures residents aren’t left on their own to shoulder the costs of resilience. Protecting our community requires both individual responsibility and city leadership. By adopting common-sense wildfire mitigation standards, while supporting homeowners with resources, we can reduce risks for families, safeguard first responders, and make Boulder a more resilient community in the face of climate-driven wildfire.
Lauren Folkerts
Yes, I support requiring wildfire mitigation and home hardening for existing homes, but only if those requirements come with strong financial support and technical assistance so families aren’t priced out of safety.
As an architect, I know that small changes, like replacing combustible materials near homes or maintaining a five-foot defensible space, can dramatically reduce the chance of ignition. But I also know from personal experience that these improvements can be costly. That’s why new standards must be paired with incentives, subsidies, and practical guidance so they’re fair and achievable for everyone.
Wildfire resilience isn’t just about individual properties; it’s also about community. Neighbors helping each other with mitigation projects, supporting one another during evacuations, and coming together in recovery, those connections save lives. Boulder can set a model by combining strong standards with real support and strong community networks.
Aaron Stone
I don’t think we should be pushing these costs on to current homeowners. We can subsidize or offer incentives to those who wish to do it voluntarily while creating natural barriers to fires where homes are currently located. In addition we need to ensure that infrastructure exists so that firefighters can rapidly reach areas they need to if a wildfire occurs.
Rob Smoke
Yes, I think the City needs a pragmatic approach to what it demands and where. Homes with an adjacent position to open space probably need more treatment than homes in central Boulder — although we have had some extraordinary fires in central Boulder. On the other hand, if we’re talking about something like de-juniperizing the entire city, I think that might be problematic.
Max Lord
I think that the updated WUI districts and code are an important step to fire hardening the city. I also believe that forcing homeowners to make changes to their homes is not the role of the city government, particularly when we make it so hard to do so. I think that people want to protect their homes, they want to protect our city, but the city makes it too difficult to acquire permits, or really even information. The new WUI map is confusing, the codes, while important, are difficult for people to understand. I think rather than forcing anything, we need to focus on outreach, and streamline permits for homeowners who are trying to update in case of a fire. I don’t see how any one can champion “affordable housing for the missing middle” when they are also forcing homeowners to pay exorbitant fees to even have the right to protect their homes.
I’m glad there is consensus for wildfire protection, while noting there is significant difference among candidates on the “Do something that will actually work” spectrum. Mark Wallach provided the actual numbers, noting that with 200 new homes per year with an existing stock of 47,000, not requiring hardening of existing homes essentially is worthless talk.
Numerous candidates didn’t want to impose financial hardships on residents. Some of those candidates have supported many taxes for many purposes none of us could name offhand, while not having your house burn to the ground is likely the most important. It might cost $1,000 to have ugly junipers removed next to a house (or cost nothing to do it yourself), which again, is a pittance compared the common gap of around $200,00 – $300,000 between Insured Value and Replacement Cost if it goes up in flames. I’m sympathetic to “financial burdens” on homeowners, but they (myself included) own property with a median value of around $980,000, compared with a national average of around $370,000, so I’m not super sympathetic. We are a wealthy community, homeowners can afford simple wildfire mitigation steps, and if cost is a big consideration, don’t forget that being smart now is way cheaper than paying for the consequences later – An ounce of prevention is definitely worth a pound of cure.
Boulder has plenty of homeowners whose property is quite valuable but whose income is relatively low. In the finance world, their property appreciation would be called “unrealized gain”. They don’t have the cash until they sell. This is especially true for some older folks who have lived in their homes a long time. So yes, new mandates may be a financial burden on some. That does not lead me to oppose mandates. It just shows we need to think about how to make this possible.
Responding to Max Lord: There is no city fee for installing screens in your attic vents. There is no fee for clearing out combustibles around your house. There is no fee for limbing your trees up nor is a permit required to remove your junipers.