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Lessons From Colorado and California
Wildfire recovery begins long before the first replacement home is permitted and continues years after the flames are extinguished.
During AIA Colorado’s recent webinar, Architects in Wildfire Recovery: The Architect’s Evolving Role in Wildfire Disaster Response and Rebuild Efforts, architects and local government officials from Colorado and California shared lessons from three very different disasters: the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County, the 2025 Los Angeles-area fires, and the recent Aspen Acres Fire in Pueblo County.
Panelists:
Their experiences revealed an expanding role for architects after disaster. Beyond designing replacement buildings, architects can help people understand where to begin, navigate insurance and permitting, evaluate builders, make informed decisions about rebuilding, and create homes and communities that are more resilient to the next wildfire.
Boulder County Deputy Planning Director Kim Sanchez helped lead the County’s response after the Marshall Fire destroyed 157 homes in unincorporated Boulder County and approximately 1,000 structures overall.
One of the County’s earliest actions was also one of its simplest: listen.
Less than two weeks after the fire, Boulder County convened residents and design professionals, not initially to present solutions, but to understand what people actually needed.
Take the time to step back and listen to what your community needs are
Kim Sanchez, Planning Director, Boulder County
What officials heard helped shape the County’s recovery policies. Regulations were streamlined for rebuilding, permit fees were reduced for three years, homeowners received greater flexibility in rebuilding footprints, and accessory dwelling units were permitted in certain circumstances to help homeowners offset rebuilding costs.
The County also assigned each affected homeowner a specific staff contact to help navigate the rebuilding process.
That approach points toward an important distinction: expedited permitting does not necessarily mean eliminating review. Instead, it can mean removing unnecessary obstacles, increasing staff attention, and creating a clearer path through an already complicated process.
Architect Scott Rodwin, AIA, saw the results firsthand. A process that could ordinarily take months was sometimes reduced to weeks, or even days, for Marshall Fire rebuilds.
After the Marshall Fire, Scott Rodwin, AIA, and his Boulder design-build firm received approximately 70 inquiries from homeowners interested in rebuilding, roughly what he described as 10 years of potential work arriving in a single year.
His firm made an early decision to accept only six homes.
That restraint, he argued, was essential. Firms that take on more disaster recovery work than they can reasonably deliver risk compounding the trauma homeowners have already experienced through delays, poor service, or abandoned projects.
But Rodwin did something else: he spent roughly an hour talking with nearly every homeowner who contacted him, including dozens whose projects his firm knew it would never accept.
Those conversations addressed fundamental questions: How much might rebuilding cost? How long could it take? How should someone interview an architect or contractor? What happens first?
For architects accustomed to clients who have spent years imagining a new home, disaster recovery reverses the normal relationship. These clients have not chosen to undertake a building project and may have no idea how architecture or construction works.
The single most important function that we as architects were providing was helping them answer the question, ‘Where do I start?’
Scott Rodwin, AIA, Rodwin Architects
That knowledge can itself become a form of disaster assistance.
Following the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, AIA chapters throughout the region mobilized more than 200 architect volunteers.
Jessica Orlando, AIA, 2026 President of AIA Pasadena & Foothill, described an effort that began by learning from architects who had already experienced disaster response. Within weeks of the fires, local chapters connected with AIA Maui to understand lessons from the Lahaina recovery.
The chapters then began preparing architects to help.
Training included California’s Safety Assessment Program, insurance policy education, and legal guidance for architects volunteering their services. The chapters also developed public resources explaining rebuilding, contracts, project delivery, and the different professionals homeowners might encounter.
Their flagship Ask an Architect initiative placed architects at more than 25 community rebuilding events while also creating a virtual matching program connecting residents with licensed architects. More than 400 community members participated.
The chapters eventually created a simple Roadmap to Rebuilding and a more comprehensive California disaster recovery guide.
The underlying need was strikingly basic: people needed a reliable place to start.
Orlando described the missing piece as a “single source of truth” that could explain the rebuilding process to someone encountering it for the first time.
The recent Aspen Acres Fire demonstrates why disaster response strategies cannot simply be copied from one community to another.
Weston Burrer, AIA, a staff architect with Pueblo County, described a fire that burned across more than 100,000 acres and affected communities ranging from more developed areas to rural mountain properties.
Beulah was particularly hard hit. Many of the structures lost there were smaller homes and cabins built generations ago, some dating back 80 to 100 years. Unlike many Marshall Fire homeowners, some residents had little or no insurance and lack the financial resources necessary to rebuild.
That changes the question from simply “How do we rebuild?” to “What is realistically possible to rebuild?”
Pueblo County has been examining reduced demolition fees, expedited permitting, and possible zoning flexibility while simultaneously dealing with damaged infrastructure and flooding within the burn scar.
For architects, Burrer sees an opportunity to help residents consider construction methods that could make replacement structures more resilient and potentially more insurable, including different exterior materials, roofing systems, and construction assemblies.
But better construction can cost more.
How are we not only helping to rebuild, but also, could we suggest a better way of building?
Warren Burrer, AIA, Staff Architect, Pueblo County
That question exposes one of the central challenges of wildfire recovery: resilience recommendations matter only if homeowners can afford to implement them.
Insurance emerged repeatedly during the discussion.
Rodwin described widespread underinsurance following the Marshall Fire and an important role architects and builders can play before homeowners accept an insurance settlement.
An architect may be able to reconstruct the essential characteristics of a destroyed home from photographs, existing plans, and owner information, develop preliminary specifications, and work with a builder to produce an “as-was” estimate of what rebuilding the previous home would actually cost.
That professional documentation can give homeowners information they otherwise may not have when discussing a settlement with their insurer.
Architects can play a similar protective role during construction.
Disasters create enormous and sudden demand for construction services. Both Rodwin and Orlando described inexperienced, unqualified, or unscrupulous providers entering affected markets. Architects can help homeowners vet contractors and designers, review payment applications, monitor construction, and understand contracts.
In those circumstances, traditional construction administration becomes something more: a layer of consumer protection for people making enormous financial decisions while recovering from a traumatic event.
No speaker attributed successful recovery to architects alone.
Marshall Fire recovery brought together local governments, architects, builders, utilities, community organizations, and groups including the Colorado Green Building Guild. Xcel Energy incentives helped some homeowners pursue greater energy efficiency while rebuilding.
Los Angeles-area AIA chapters worked with government agencies, community organizations, and hundreds of volunteers.
Pueblo County is now coordinating among local government, FEMA, infrastructure teams, and affected communities while the recovery is still in its earliest stages.
The common lesson was collaboration.
As Rodwin observed of the Marshall Fire response:
It wasn’t just architects. It was the entire community working together.
Scott Rodwin, AIA, Rodwin Architecture
The conversation eventually shifted from recovery toward preparedness.
Defensible space remains critical, but the panel emphasized that wildfire resilience extends to the building itself. Strategies discussed included ignition-resistant exterior materials, eliminating combustible materials immediately adjacent to buildings, protecting attic and crawl-space openings from embers, reconsidering roof geometries that collect debris, using Class A roofing, and improving window assemblies.
Rodwin also noted an important connection between wildfire resilience and high-performance design. Better insulated envelopes and higher-performing windows can contribute to both energy performance and protection from extreme heat and ignition.
The result is a broader way of thinking about resilience: not as a specialty added to a project, but as another dimension of good building design.
Perhaps the strongest lesson from the discussion was that an architect’s role in wildfire recovery does not begin when someone signs a design contract.
Architects can prepare before disasters by learning safety assessment procedures, understanding resilient construction, and building relationships with government agencies and community organizations. Immediately afterward, they can help assess damage, answer questions, and translate an unfamiliar rebuilding process. During recovery, they can help homeowners navigate design, permitting, insurance, and construction. Through every rebuilding project, they can help communities prepare for what comes next.
For some homeowners, rebuilding will be the right decision. For others, it won’t be. Sanchez noted that several Marshall Fire survivors chose to sell their property or move rather than undertake a lengthy and expensive rebuilding process.
That, too, changes how recovery should be measured.
The goal isn’t simply to reconstruct every building that was lost. It is to give people enough information, support, and agency to determine what recovery looks like for them, while helping the communities that emerge become better prepared for the future.