Published in the Denver Post on January 26th, 2025

Re: Is Denver’s water system ready for a firestorm (January 19th commentary)

The CEO of Denver Water, Alan Salazar, does the responsible thing and reports to us how Denver Water is dealing with the wildfire threat. Apparently, Denver Water takes this seriously and I’m happy to see that happen. Mr. Salazar lists causes for the threat; yet he omits the one that is the largest and the threat that continues to grow every time someone turns the gasoline engine on in their car: the heating of our world leading out here in the west to ever worsening extremes in dry conditions.

We all like our lives as they are. But things are changing because we don’t change. The heating up and drying out of our forests and prairies can stop if we stop burning the products of the oil, coal, and gas industries. It’s not that big a change to drive an EV and heat your home with the tested technologies of heat pumps. It’s a lot bigger change to have to go through finding a new house because your home, uninsurable in a growing number of cases, evaporated in an uncontainable fire.

And yes, we were lucky with the Marshall fire. As good as those firefighters are, there was nothing they could do against those winds and heat. Our wind died down. In LA, it didn’t. But next time, if we don’t change, it will be worse.

Jeff Neuman-Lee, Denver