Kevin Lombardo's house is not like the others in his Louisville neighborhood. It's cube-shaped and has steel siding. Some say it's odd.
“People have come up and asked us questions about our house, ‘Why did we do this?’ And, ‘What is that?’” he said.
But each decision of the custom build was made with a purpose. Lombardo steps outside and points up to a honeycomb-shaped vent on the side of his house. It traps flying embers.
“There's holes on the outside, and then there's a finer mesh inside,” he said. “Inside that finer mesh is that material that swells up if it gets too hot.”
This redesign wasn’t originally planned. The Lombardos lost their previous home of six years in the 2021 Marshall Fire. They saw a huge cloud of smoke and instantly started packing up their belongings.
“I honestly didn't think that the house was going to burn, I thought we were just kind of getting away from the smoke,” Casey Lombardo said. “My son was like, ‘You should pack your wedding picture.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, it's kind of big. We don't need to pack that.’”
When they returned, all except two homes in their neighborhood were gone. It took them a while to find their lot among the ash and ruins. She said it was a nightmare.
“It looked like a war zone, we couldn’t pinch ourselves and wake ourselves up,” she said. “We would look down in the pit of what was left of our foundation and see, like, my crock pot.”
After the Marshall Fire, everyone was scrambling to figure out insurance, builders, and how to get back in a home. They had to learn, spend and do a lot in a short amount of time.
The Lombardos ultimately did what was best for them. They decided to rebuild with fire safety in mind.
They invested in decking that’s been pressure-treated with fire resistant chemicals, added triple-paned windows, and hardscaped more of their property with concrete.
But not all of their neighbors could afford or consider that.
“This was all very haphazard. We were just very challenged as a community because we were so underinsured,” Kevin Lombardo said. “When you look around and see different choices, it is hard… you can only do what you can do and help raise awareness.”
Casey Lombardo also understands the squeeze. But she wishes the neighborhood put more fire-resistant measures into practice.
“It would have been really cool if someone could have come in and take(n) our whole neighborhood and sa(id), ‘We're going firewise. We’re gonna do this right, and this community will survive another fire,’” she said.
The Front Range is no stranger to wildfires. While fire leaders are actively training for the dry, summer months, they say homeowners can play a huge role in preparation by investing in fire-resistant techniques.
Community fire safety is what gets Melanie Gaylord excited. She stands outside her home in west Fort Collins as a delivery truck drives through her neighborhood.
“Ooh, somebody else is getting (cement) fiber board, yay!” she said, smiling. “I'm trying to push neighbors that if they're gonna re-side their house, they get cement.”
She’s the founder of Giant’s Heart Wildfire, which shares free fire safety resources and tips with homeowners in Northern Colorado. She started the organization soon after evacuating during the Cameron Peak fire in 2020. The fire came within a mile from her home.
“We can still see the burn scar from our deck,” she said. “It's a good reminder, but also a grim reminder that this can happen, and will happen, again and again.”
Her house didn’t burn down, but she started doing what she could to her own home to prepare for the future – getting cement siding, moving her propane tank and changing out her junipers for low-flammable plants. She’s already invested around $30,000.
But her own efforts might not be enough, since all it takes is one nearby home that’s not prepared to start a fire and destroy a whole neighborhood.
“I'm not actually, technically any safer until they are,” she said. “We all kind of, as Coloradans, have to do this together, or it's not going to work. So I decided that the best way to help myself was to essentially help all of the surrounding communities."
Gaylord is one of the many Northern Colorado residents who live in the Wildland Urban Interface, or WUI. That’s where homes and wilderness meet, and where fires caused by humans are more likely.
In 2022, Colorado State Forest Service estimated that there are more than a million structures in the WUI. That’s half of the state’s population. Around 20% of those homes and buildings were in Boulder, Larimer and Weld counties. They’re still tabulating the 2025 data.
“We are seeing increasing numbers of population in the WUI in Colorado,” Amanda West Fordham, the associate director of the science and data division of the agency, said. “It's really important for people who are moving into these spaces to understand wildfire risk.”
But fire officials are still estimating there could be around 6,000 wildfires just this summer. State and federal budgets are running thin. Insurance has become more expensive or hard to find for some homeowners in the WUI because companies see the increased fire risk. And the climate data isn’t promising.
That’s why Fordham says taking care of your own home is the first step. The agency has tools to see what homes are at the highest degree of wildfire risk and recommendations on what homeowners should change.
Some of their general tips include removing leaves and pine needles around the house and investing in fire-safe fencing and roofing.
“All of these efforts help firefighters by allowing them to concentrate their work on managing fire,” Fordham said.
But ultimately, Fordham said, it takes a village to create change.
“It's really important to reach out to your neighbors and support community wildfire protection planning,” she said. “That's really the key to long-term wildfire resilience in the state of Colorado.”
Gaylord has become her own neighborhood wildfire advocate for this reason. She got a grant from Larimer County’s Office of Emergency Management in 2022, and she decided to hold a wildfire mitigation event in 2023. She was told no one would participate, and she wasn’t sure what to expect. But people were ready to take some steps toward change.
“It was just me, a trailer, a wood chipper and a chainsaw, just going door to door, helping neighbors,” she said. “At one point, I want to say we removed over 100 tons of fire fuel.”
Currently, she’s training to be certified in wildfire mitigation and risk management. She’s also done a lot of classes for the community with the help of local fire agencies. The first one was held in her neighborhood cul-de-sac in 2023.
“Everybody was all in. Hands were up, questions were asked,” she said. “It was fantastic to see everybody's enthusiasm of, ‘Okay, what can we do about this? What can we do about this?’”
She knows there’s no way to be 100% “fireproof,” and not all of her neighbors participate. But she feels a lot of peace in the efforts she and her neighbors have taken. She felt a noticeable difference when the Alexander Mountain fire came close to her neighborhood last year.
“It was kind of a moment of pride of, ‘Okay, what we're doing really does matter,’” she said.
Gaylord plans to teach more classes in Berthoud, Loveland, and other rural communities soon.
KUNC has a Northern Colorado Wildfire Resources page to post current wildfire updates, evacuation notices and more. You can check it out here.
