The 2021 Marshall fire that swept through Boulder County, burning more than 1,000 homes and businesses, killing two people and causing more than $2 billion in damage, changed how residents, policymakers and power providers view the threat of fires and efforts to prevent them.

Electric utilities are increasingly cutting power during extreme weather to reduce the threat of fire from trees falling on lines or wind-whipped lines igniting grasses. But after a recent series of preventive shutoffs by Xcel Energy in Colorado, residents impacted by the outages told legislators and state regulators they want solutions that don’t cause the disruption of days without electricity.

The calls were loudest for burying power lines, improving utility equipment to withstand storms and compensating businesses and individuals for losses due to outages.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is taking comments and will write new rules for what are called

The planned power outages are just one tool to minimize wildfire risks, Xcel Energy-Colorado President Robert Kenney said in an interview with The Denver Post.

He said the company has buried many miles of power lines and will bury more in high-risk wildfire areas.

“We actually have about 50% of our system already underground, and so we are not opposed to it. We think that it is an appropriate tool for wildfire mitigation where it makes sense,” Kenney said.

A total of 19,000 miles of Xcel’s lines in Colorado are underground with 4,000 miles of those in high-risk wildfire areas. An additional 14,000 miles of power lines are overhead.

As part of that runs through 2027, Xcel energy plans to underground 50 more miles of power lines. Kenney said during a recent PUC hearing that the work would primarily be in Boulder.

Another tactic in the wildfire mitigation plan approved by the PUC is so-called sectionalization, which uses technology to isolate segments of the system to more precisely target trouble spots and avoid cutting power to a larger area. The process was used to reduce the impact in Boulder in March when strong winds and hot, dry weather led Xcel to warn of possible shutoffs.

Other tools are drones to inspect poles and equipment in high wildfire risk areas; covering conductors; replacing smaller-diameter wire with larger-diameter wire; keeping vegetation away from lines; replacing poles; enhancing weather forecasting; and adding more cameras with 360-degree views that use artificial intelligence and satellite feeds to detect fires early.

In 2025, Kenney said Xcel did about 8,000 repairs on equipment and replaced 10,000-plus poles.

One consideration with burying power lines is that it costs roughly $3.9 million a mile compared with about $1 million a mile for overhead lines, Kenney said. That could run as much as $200 million for the 50 miles of underground lines Xcel plans through 2027. At $3.9 million per mile, the price tag for undergrounding Xcel’s remaining 14,000 miles of overhead lines would be $54.6 billion.

While cost isn’t the sole factor, Kenney said Xcel considers the potential impact on ratepayers when deciding where and whether to bury power lines.

On the other side of the scale is the danger of another Marshall fire, which investigators said was caused in part by a blaze that ignited near part of Xcel’s distribution system when a power line became loose and set parched vegetation on fire. Investigators said reignited embers from an earlier fire on the property of the Twelve Tribes, a religious cult, was another starting point.

Xcel, facing hundreds of lawsuits in connection with the fire, agreed to a $640 million settlement in September, but disputes it was to blame for the fire.

Some speakers during a PUC hearing contended that Xcel chooses to cut power during high winds to avoid getting sued. Kenney said people would sue anyway.

“The risk of wildfire continues to evolve, and as the risk evolves, our mitigations continue to evolve,” Kenney said. “And so we’re constantly assessing and reassessing our risk mitigation efforts. It might very well be the case that our next plan will include additional undergrounding.”

‘The wind blows all the time in Colorado’

Crystal Baldwin, the owner of in Golden, would like to see more power lines buried. Her business was among several that lost money when Xcel cut the electricity in part of metro Denver and Boulder Dec. 17 and 19, the last weekend before Christmas.

“If this is what our new normal is going to be, then probably that has to happen,” Baldwin said.

If undergrounding more lines isn’t feasible, then Xcel needs to spend money on infrastructure that can stand up to the winds, she said. “Honestly, the wind blows in Colorado all the time. We can’t shut down all our businesses because the wind blows.”

The nearly 100 businesses that responded to a survey by the Golden Chamber of Commerce reported losing altogether about $1.8 million. Nola Krajewski, the chamber president, said the average loss was $18,000.

“We know that nobody wants another Marshall fire. Nobody wants to see that again and so I  recognize that there is a need for proactive safety measures,” Krajewski said. “But with that being said, I don’t think the business community should bear the burden of responsibility for all of that.”

Businesses owners said they didn’t have enough notice to fully prepare for the December shutoffs, Krajewski said. Restaurants lost food. Small retailers missed out on crucial shopping days before the holiday. Business owners faced making payroll with no income coming in.

Aggravating the situation was confusion about where and when power would be turned off and when it would be restored. Krajewski said the communication felt disorganized. People got notice the power would be off, so they didn’t open for business. Then the power stayed on in some places.

Baldwin, whose store is in downtown Golden, said her business was closed for three days. The first day, she didn’t realize the power was still on until she looked at the in-store camera. She drove from her home in the foothills above Golden to open the store.

“We really didn’t do much business because the local people thought we were closed. They were getting the same messages,” Baldwin said.

Her losses, an estimated $18,000, came after a significant investment in remodeling and rebranding her store. She said community members with medical issues were left vulnerable and residents lost food when their refrigerators quit working.

Xcel said it is expanding a program that offers rebates on batteries for income-qualified customers on medical devices.

The electricity went out at in east Golden for about 36 hours, was on for a few hours and blinked out again for hours. The business lost 60 barrels of beer worth about $10,000 in the first outage said, Josh Robbins, founder, president and brewmaster of New Terrain.

“When you’re brewing beer, it needs to be temperature-controlled, especially in the first few days right after you brew it,” Robbins said. “We did lose one large batch of beer because it heated up too much.”

New Terrain kept its tap room open because it had compressed air “to push the beer,” Robbins said. A refrigerated truck kept beer cold. But people assumed everything was closed, so traffic was slow on what would typically be a busy weekend. Robbins figures the overall losses were about $30,000.

“The main part around it was just the lack of clarity,” Robbins said.

The notice about the planned outage was vague, he said. Another notice said power would be restored around 4 p.m., but returned hours ahead of that.

“It was really hard to plan,” Robbins said.

New Terrain is now set up to switch from its chiller to city water to cool beer if the power goes out. If preemptive power outages are expected to continue, Robbins said he might install a back-up generator. However, he estimates the work and equipment would cost roughly $100,000. He would like to know how Xcel plans to handle extreme weather going forward so he can decide if the outlay would be worth it.

“As far as Xcel goes, hopefully, they’re coming up with a plan that is more robust that can handle times like these,” Robbins said.

Burying power lines a no-brainer?

Xcel Energy will file another wildfire-mitigation plan with the PUC in 2027. Kenney told a legislative committee after the December outages that the company is expanding the use of devices that cut electricity to certain lines if something touches the line when the threat of wildfires is high.

Technology will also allow Xcel to shut off power to specific points to reduce the time and scope of cutoffs, Kenney said. Placing crews in strategic locations before power shutoffs, using drones and helicopters and exploring ways to automate line inspections can help speed up restoration of electricity after wind storms are over.

Xcel has to be sure the lines are OK and free of branches and other objects before turning the electricity back on, Kenney said. That can take hours to days.

Xcel said approximately 348,000 customers were affected by planned outages and outages because of wind damage in December. About 30,000 customers lost power in January and 11,996 in March because of planned and unplanned outages.

For the public, undergrounding power lines might seem like “a no-brainer solution” to extreme weather, said Scott Aaronson, senior vice president of energy security and industry operations at the Edison Electric Institute. The association represents U.S. investor-owned electric utilities such as Xcel Energy.

“But there are significant challenges with undergrounding. First of all, it’s very expensive,” Aaronson said.

The costs depend on the terrain, the geology and whether the lines are being laid in an established neighborhood or a new development.

“One other challenge I don’t think people think about quite as much is when something goes wrong underground, it is significantly more difficult to fix it,” Aaronson said

And expensive.

“There are concerns around adding significant cost to customers at a time when affordability is a high priority,” Aaronson said.

Burying power lines won’t prevent all wildfires, he added. He said more than 90% of fires are started by something other than electric infrastructure.

However, the risk of catastrophic wildfires is growing, and not just in the West. As a result, Aaronson said utilities’ cost-benefit analysis of burying lines is changing.

“Where it makes sense, targeted undergrounding is increasingly being chosen as a viable tool to reduce fire risk,” Aaronson said.

When technology advanced in the 1980s and 1990s, that made it easier to bury lines and it often made sense to do, especially for new developments, said Michael Lamb, Xcel Energy executive vice president whose areas include electric distribution and wildfire risk management.

Despite the ongoing advances, there are some places where it’s difficult or impossible to run lines underground because of the geology, Lamb said.

For , undergrounding power lines is “our strongest layer of protection against catastrophic wildfires,” spokeswoman Andria Borba said in an email. She said the practice has reduced the risk by 98%.

The utility has . Borba said PG&E has undergrounded more than 1,220 miles of line and is on track to complete a total of nearly 1,900 miles in high-risk fire areas by the end of 2027. The utility has installed more than 1,450 miles of strengthened poles and covered power lines

Burying power lines costs PG&E roughly $3 million per mile, Borba said. Approximately $3 of the average monthly customer bill goes towards undergrounding lines and $19 per month toward managing vegetation.

Like Xcel Energy, PG&E cuts the electricity when conditions are ripe for wildfires. Also like Xcel, PG&E uses devices to target trouble spots to narrow the scope of the outage.

PG&E uses microgrids, or distributed energy sources such as solar that are independent of the main electric grid, to minimize the impact on customers. Power shutoffs affected more than 2 million customers in 2019. In 2025, the number was about 18,000, Borba said.

The California utility has faced heavy fallout from destructive wildfires. Lawsuits over fires drove PG&E to file for bankruptcy protection in 2019. Investigators said started when a hook holding a PG&E transmission line broke and set dry vegetation ablaze.

The and emerged from bankruptcy in 2020.

A lot of work left to do

The Boulder area is a focus of Xcel’s plans for more underground lines. The city of Boulder has about 60% of its power lines underground.

“Utilities really didn’t start undergrounding until kind of the 1980s as a normal course of business,” Carolyn Elam, sustainability senior manager for the city of Boulder, said.

As Boulder grew, the city required burying power lines when areas were redeveloped or built out. Much of the underground work Xcel looks to do is in Boulder County, outside the city limits, Elam said.

But parts of the city will benefit from the work because the lines feed areas within Boulder. One such project will bury lines along 75th Street near the city’s wastewater treatment plant. In April 2024, the first time Xcel used preemptive power outages to reduce wildfire risks, city employees had to scramble to ensure raw sewage didn’t flow into Boulder Creek when power was cut to the plant����ap two electric substations.

Elam said the line serves about 2,000 customers in the area. While putting lines underground reduces wildfire risk, she said it doesn’t ensure reliability of the system.

“We’ve seen some pretty substantial outages recently that are associated with the underground cables starting to fail, reaching the end of life,” Elam said.

Many outages have nothing to do with trees or overhead wires, she said. “They’re just the natural aging of Xcel’s infrastructure in our area.”

Xcel has been aggressively replacing old poles and wires, particularly in the wildland areas, Elam said. “There’s a lot of that work going on. But there’s a lot that has to be done and it takes quite a bit of time.”

Initially, he viewed Colorado’s property taxes and insurance costs as a bargain compared to California, the state he left behind. That didn’t last long. After years of repeated hikes, McClure’s most recent quote from Nationwide Insurance was $11,300, seven times more than what he was charged when he first moved in.

“I took it as they don’t want my business. I didn’t even try to talk to them,” said a frustrated McClure.

He found a more affordable policy from Farmers Insurance for $5,404 a year. That is still 3.4 times above his initial premium, but less than half of what Nationwide wanted.

Although the increase McClure faced represents an extreme case, it isn’t an isolated one. Colorado home insurance premiums have doubled since 2020 and are up 55% since 2023, outstripping the gains seen in other states.

Already burdened after a spike in property taxes, homeowners in the state are spending on average nearly $1 out of every $22 they earn insuring their properties, draining dollars that could otherwise support local economies.

“It has been brutal the past three years,” said Dustin Hailey, owner of Insurance Club in Denver, an insurance brokerage that McClure turned to when he moved to Colorado.

Hailey has eyes on about 100 home policies coming up for renewal each month, and annual increases of $700 to $1,000 are fairly common. Deductibles, especially for hail and wind damage, are going up.

McClure said he has tried to understand why his premiums went up so much. His neighborhood isn’t in the foothills and far from any forests or the dry grasses that allowed the Marshall fire to burn deep into residential neighborhoods and destroy more than 1,000 homes.

Severance, which is 10 miles east of Fort Collins, is surrounded by irrigated croplands.

He lives a mile from a fire station. Utility lines in his neighborhood are buried, reducing fire risks and damaging outages from high winds. His home has hail-resistant shingles. All of those should have helped to keep premiums in check.

Not long after he moved in, McClure said a bad hailstorm hit his neighborhood. The tougher shingles the previous owner installed did their job and protected the roof. For about a month, a steady flow of roofers came knocking on his door. Some were offering to pay his deductible if he replaced his roof with them, which is illegal in Colorado.

“A lot of houses were getting brand new roofs, even houses only a year or two old. A lot of repairs were happening that maybe didn’t need to happen. There was opportunism,” he said.

Weld County has consistently ranked as the top county in the country for tornado touchdowns since tracking began in 1950, according to the . And Colorado ranks second after Texas for hail-related claims.

Severe weather isn’t anything new to the northern Front Range, but storms are growing more intense and the damage they are causing has risen seven-fold in the past five years.

McClure’s experience represents an extreme case. On average, Colorado home insurance premiums have doubled between 2020 and 2025, the largest gain seen in any state, according to a

“When premiums double this quickly, it����ap a sign that insurers are struggling to keep pace with rising claims and rebuilding costs,” said Rob Bhatt, a licensed insurance agent who provided comments in the LendingTree report. “Unfortunately, homeowners often feel the impact first through higher rates and fewer coverage options.”

$1,000 above the U.S. average

LendingTree ranks Colorado as the seventh most “unstable” home insurance market in the country, and premium hikes are hitting consumers, already struggling with rising property taxes, directly in the pocketbook.

“At the high end, 54% or around $2,258 of Colorado homeowners’ premiums can be attributed to hail,” said Matt Brannon, a senior data analyst at Insurify, a digital insurance comparison platform, which conducted a separate study.

Wildfire risks contribute between 1% to 25% of premiums, depending on the county.

In 2023, Colorado was only slightly above the national average with home insurance premiums of $2,584 a year. Now premiums run more than $1,000 above the U.S. average of $2,948, .

Colorado home insurance premiums averaged $3,032 at the end of 2024, a 17% increase from 2023, and were at $3,996 at the end of 2024, a 33% increase. Those premiums covered dwellings that averaged $324,724 in value.

Insurify, however, predicts increases will taper this year, with a 4% gain in premiums lifting the average in Colorado to $4,164.

Home insurance premiums are expected to average $4,533 in metro Denver this year, $3,966 in Boulder, $3,631 in Larimer County and $4,772 in Colorado Springs.

Only five states had higher average home insurance premiums than Colorado last year. They include hurricane-prone Florida at $8,292; Louisiana at $5,050; Oklahoma at $4,962; Texas at $4,380, and Nebraska at $4,028.

As for California, the state McClure left during the pandemic in pursuit of a lower cost of living — its average premium is substantially below Colorado at $2,455, despite its mudslides, earthquakes and intense urban wildfires.

Colorado homeowners have faced the biggest premium increases of any state, even though the loss ratio, or the amount of revenues that go out in claims, remains in the low 80% range, according to .

When payouts for claims exceed the premiums collected, insurers need to either raise revenues or risk going insolvent. In Louisiana, the payout ratio between 2020 and 20204 exceeded 140%. In Iowa, which had the second biggest premium increases after Colorado, it ran 118%.

Colorado as a high-risk zone

Although claims in 2023 surpassed premiums paid in Colorado, from 2020 and 2024 the loss ratio has averaged 81.6%, which ranked 10th worst among states, according to LendingTree.

Even though claims aren’t exceeding premiums, Colorado’s ratio exceeds the 60% to 70% range that insurers want to see. That range allows them to cover overhead and turn a profit.

“Colorado tops all the lists nobody wants to be on,” said Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. “We have a very challenging business environment.”

Colorado has seen litigation costs and regulatory burdens around insurance rise, Walker said. Nearly $2 out of $3 paid out are due to “catastrophic” claims, putting the state into a category the industry calls a “hard” market.

Because Colorado is now considered a “dual” risk market at risk of large-scale hail and wildfire catastrophes, reinsurance policies, which help insurers off load the risk of large and unexpected events, are more costly to obtain.

“The global reinsurance market now views Colorado as a high-risk zone similar to Florida or California,” Brannon said. And reinsurers are dialing down to the regional and state level to account for more severe weather patterns.

If the northern Front Range had Mesa County weather, insurance premiums wouldn’t be making headlines because they wouldn’t be rising so much.

Colorado’s population, not to mention its strongest new home construction zones, are increasingly concentrated in the most hail-prone part of the state.

The state also has a long history of “storm chasers” or roofing crews that show up after a big storm, claiming intact roofs need replacement, typically inflating repair costs in the process, Walker said.

And if all that weren’t bad enough, Colorado has higher construction costs, which makes rebuilding and repairing things after a catastrophe more expensive than in other states.

Shop around for best insurance policy but don’t cut corners

Nearly one in 10 homeowners in the state go without insurance coverage, according to LendingTree. That is on the low end among states — Louisiana is at one in five. But the share of uncovered and undercovered homes may climb as premiums rise, increasing the odds that damaged homes don’t get fixed.

One key piece of advice offered to consumers coping with rising premiums is to shop around. McClure’s example shows how that can pay.

Walker cautions consumers, however, to be careful that they aren’t cutting corners in ways that they will come to regret later. They need to understand what deductibles they are on the hook for, and what coverage reductions they are willing to accept. And they should never drop their existing coverage until a new policy is locked in.

Hailey said insurers are significantly increasing the deductibles on roof replacements to give homeowners more skin in the game. And in a new twist, he has started to see coverage plans specific to roof replacements pop up.

Some insurers are reducing their underwriting in the state, while others are pricing risk in ways that, from the outside, seem designed to test the pain threshold of homeowners or to get them to leave.

Hailey said one client had her home insurance premiums go from $8,500 a year to $29,500 a year.

“Why not just non-renew it? That is offensive,” he said.

Non-renewals are running about 25% higher in Colorado than they were in 2018, according to a at Colorado State University.

To help those who can’t find coverage, the state last year also implemented an insurer of last resort option known as the FAIR Plan.

Walker said insurers are trying to keep costs in check by pushing for the widespread use of Class 4 impact-resistant shingles when roofs are replaced. Homeowners should only work with established and reputable roofing companies.

LendingTree estimates that home insurance premiums eat up 4.6% of homeowners’ household incomes on average in Colorado. While that isn’t the most extreme share, insurance is becoming a heavier burden.

McClure said the big increases in insurance premiums have weighed on his spending decisions, and he doesn’t see how they won’t weigh on the larger state economy by soaking up disposable income.

His family put a ski trip for the kids this winter on ice and canceled their summer vacation plans. They also backed away from plans to buy a new car.

“That is money that we would have spent into the Colorado economy that is instead going to some insurance company executive salary or to their shareholders,” he said. “This, on a mass scale, is exporting wealth and funds out of Colorado.”

Walker counters that premium increases, for both homes and autos, are in line with the obligations insurers are facing in Colorado.

“We are in a situation where, unfortunately, insurance companies have to take in enough premiums to pay out claims,” Walker said. “The number and cost of claims are rising at a record pace.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it would hear the companies’ arguments that such lawsuits should be heard in federal court, not state court. The companies — Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil — have argued that the case should be heard in federal court and are challenging a May decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that allowed the 2018 case filed by the City of Boulder and Boulder County to continue in state court.

“The oil companies have tried every avenue to delay our climate accountability case or move it to an out-of-state court system,” Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said in a news release Monday morning. “As everyone continues to face rising costs that put budgets under pressure, we must hold oil companies accountable for the significant harm they’ve caused our communities. We move forward with renewed energy and purpose for the next step toward justice.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Boulder case could have implications for dozens of similar lawsuits alleging that oil and gas companies knowingly lied to the public about how their production of fossil fuels contributes to climate change.

Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it����ap necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires and severe storms worsened by climate change, along with rising sea levels.

State courts’ responses have been mixed. Some decided the cases should be heard in federal court, while Colorado and others allowed lawsuits to proceed in state court. While five of the seven Colorado Supreme Court justices said the case could stay in state court, the two dissenting justices called on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

“As our filings make clear, climate policy shouldn’t be set through fragmented state‑court actions, and we look forward to making that case before the Court,” ExxonMobil spokesman Curtis Smith said in an emailed statement.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Boulder case will resolve the conflicting court decisions, said Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the . The project is an effort by the National Association of Manufacturers to rebuff lawsuits in state courts that target industry.

The association is not a party to the Boulder case but to hear it.

“The Supreme Court����ap decision to review Boulder’s climate lawsuit is a decisive step toward resolving conflicting rulings nationwide and reaffirming that climate policy belongs with elected policymakers — not the courts,” Goldberg said in a statement. “Courts across the country have responded to these cases in divergent ways, with many dismissing them for lack of legal and practical foundation.

“Supreme Court review will bring much-needed clarity and uniformity to this issue and help ensure that fundamental policy decisions about energy and climate are made by the appropriate branches of government.”

Arguments on the case are expected in the fall.

In the Boulder case, ExxonMobil and Suncor argued emissions were a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out. The federal government has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not state governments, the companies previously argued.

Suncor did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in to support the companies and urged the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean “every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.”

Boulder officials want Suncor and ExxonMobil to pay for the impacts of climate change, including millions for recovery from extreme weather.

Boulder’s climate initiatives director, Jonathan Koehn, from Boulder city and county officials that the case “is, fundamentally, about fairness.”

“Boulder is already experiencing the effects of a rapidly warming climate, and the financial burden of adaptation should not fall solely on local taxpayers,” Koehn said. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will not hamstring our right under Colorado law to seek the resources needed to build a safer, more resilient future.”

The City of Boulder has prioritized climate adaptability in its long-term planning, with the effects of climate change directly influencing approaches to pertinent city issues such as transportation and wildfire hardening.

City and county officials said Boulder — and the rest of Colorado — was already shouldering costs from rising temperatures “that would otherwise fall on local taxpayers.”

“The lawsuit aims to ensure that the corporations that caused the harm pay their fair share, rather than shifting the burden to Colorado communities,” officials said in the release.

Tiff Boyd, the executive director for the Boulder County organization Classrooms for Climate Action, echoed Koehn’s belief that the average person has been bearing too much of the brunt of climate change. The 2021 Marshall fire’s impact is indicative of that — not just from the blaze but also from its aftermath of rebuilding and preparing for a future fire.

“The financial burden of all this adaptation is falling solely on local taxpayers,” said Boyd, who pointed toward an overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused, particularly from the burning of fossil fuels.

Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, an associate law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in administrative and environmental law, said the Supreme Court hasn’t shown interest in cases similar to the Boulder lawsuit in the past.

That, he said, raises curiosity and nerves about why the justices wanted to hear the case.

“You could read into that that maybe this Supreme Court doesn’t think it has the authority to hear these types of lawsuits, and so that would block people from bringing them in the future,” Skinner-Thompson said.

Monday’s decision to take up the case comes on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent revocation of a finding that climate change posed a threat to public health, which provided the legal underpinning for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

How the Supreme Court handles challenges to that decision may offer a window into the justices’ views on the Boulder case, he said.

“I think that����ap going to be a big issue in terms of how that impacts what the Supreme Court thinks about these types of climate nuisance cases, going forward,” Skinner-Thompson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway said Wednesday that a survey of 20 homeowners insurance companies showed that hail is the largest driver behind premium costs in 11 counties across the state.

Conway said in a statement that the insurance division is working with the Colorado General Assembly to create a grant program for homeowners to fortify their roofs against hail.

Colorado is typically ranked second nationally behind Texas for hail insurance claims, according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.

The companies surveyed by the state represent 80% of the Colorado market. They reported that hail damage accounts for an average 26% to 54% of the total homeowner insurance premium, depending on the county.

Along the Front Range and on the Eastern Plains, hail accounts for about 50% of the premium that homeowners pay.

In contrast, wildfire risk represents 0.9% to 24.6% of the premium, based on location. According to the data, insurance companies target wildfire-prone areas, so counties at low risk pay less of their premiums toward wildfire risk.

In Denver, an average of 1% of premiums go toward wildfire risk.

But even Coloradans who don’t live in hail-prone areas, such as the mountains, pay for hail damage through their premiums, Conway said.

In Summit County, which doesn’t experience much hail because it’s in the mountains and has overall low moisture, hail accounts for an average 35.6% of premiums while wildfire only accounts for 7.9%

“We can’t change the weather in Colorado, but we can and should help consumers in high risk areas fortify their roofs because that will help lower everyone’s premiums,” Conway said.

Polis said saving home homeowners money on insurance must be part of the overall solution to lower the cost of housing.

Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association, said the survey’s results about hail’s impact on insurance claims aren’t surprising.

“We live in hail alley. We have more damaging hail here than most anywhere else in the world or the country,” Walker said. “Unfortunately, it is the biggest cost driver both for property and for auto insurance in Colorado.”

Colorado’s most costly natural catastrophe in 2025 dollars was a $3 billion hail storm in metro Denver in 2017. The second costliest natural disaster was the 2021 Marshall fire in Boulder County at $2.1 billion.

a data analytics firm, ranked Colorado second only to California in the number of homes in moderate or greater risk of fire — 318,783 — and the cost of rebuilding those homes — $146.2 billion.

Walker said many insurance companies offer discounts to individual homeowners who install hail-resistant roofs. However, the goal is to significantly increase the number of people who fortify their buildings to lower the risk and premiums overall as some hurricane-prone states have done by incentivizing preventive measures.

Information by the  showed that 43% of homeowners in four metro areas in Texas, the No. 1 state for hail insurance claims, had installed hail-resistant roofing. In Colorado, second in hail claims, only 10% of homeowners in metro Denver, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins had fortified their roofs.

Walker said education is important in increasing the number of people putting in impact-resistant roofs as well as incentives, such as grant programs. She favors an approach used by other states that funnels revenue from insurance premium tax dollars to finance incentives.

“Anything that will be a direct fee on insurance companies with no ability for companies to recoup those costs, will ultimately still have to be passed onto homeowners,” Walker said.

State officials are exploring the possibility of a reinsurance program for wildfire coverage, Conway said.

Reinsurance is the insurance that insurance companies buy.

Walker said she hasn’t seen much success with state reinsurance programs, which require hundreds of millions of dollars to work.

“I would rather focus on hail, the biggest cost driver,” she said.

That’s a big selling point for Dylan Williams, the wildfire mitigation and resilience coordinator for Douglas County. He sees biochar — a carbon-rich, charcoal-like material produced with intense heat and little oxygen — as the “next level of wildfire mitigation.”

The $8 million , which will begin construction soon, is being billed as the first county-owned facility of its type in the country.

The process of making biochar releases little in the way of harmful emissions, experts say, making it a desirable method to process organic matter that land managers see as increasingly important to remove from the forest as the climate warms and becomes drier.

The material that’s produced brings another upside: Biochar can be added to farm fields, golf courses or home gardens, where it improves aeration and water retention in soil. It also stores carbon that might otherwise get released as planet-warming carbon dioxide through burning — or as methane, another greenhouse gas, if it were left to break down in a landfill.

“By converting woody debris and forest byproducts into biochar, we’re reducing wildfire risk, supporting responsible forest management, and creating a valuable resource that can improve soil health and support long-term environmental resilience,” Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon said last week.

The county has been moving quickly to get the plant up and running, said Nash Leef, a partner in Carbon Dynamics. Leef’s company works with local governments to stand up biochar operations and has been collaborating with Douglas County for about a year to prepare the plant’s debut, expected this fall.

“The technology to produce biochar at scale is nascent,” he said. “There are so many communities watching Douglas County to see if it will work for them.”

One set of interested eyes comes from Aurora. The county and Colorado’s third-largest city hammered out an agreement in December that from Aurora toward the development of the biochar facility.

Aurora Water spokeswoman Shonnie Cline said most of the city’s drinking water originates from forested areas west of the city, “where forest thinning and fuels-reduction projects are essential to reducing wildfire risk.”

But properly disposing of that potential wildfire fuel can be as difficult as removing it in the first place.

“From an operational standpoint, one of the greatest challenges associated with forest health work is managing the woody material generated through thinning projects,” Cline said. “Today, that material is often trucked to landfills, chipped onsite or burned in piles, which can be costly and generate higher emissions.”

Daniel Roberts, the assistant director of Douglas County’s public works department, said the plant’s future home off of U.S. 85 is just downhill from the Pike and San Isabel national forests, where wildfire danger lurks large.

Where trucks today haul tons of downed logs and leafy understory to distant landfills and other receiving sites in the state, Douglas County’s new facility could reduce those miles — and costs — substantially, he said.

But the new plant won’t just be for the big guys.

At an open house last week in Castle Rock, several dozen people turned out to learn about Douglas County’s biochar ambitions. A.J. Opp, the lead plant healthcare technician with Knothead Tree and Lawn, was in the audience.

His company, he said, would much rather turn the organic waste it generates into a useful product rather than just chucking it.

“I like it mostly because of the reusability of the product that I’m trying to get rid of,” Opp said, holding a sample bag at the open house. “This is instantly usable carbon.”

Biochar market is growing

Biochar as a material is not novel. It has been produced by humans for more than 2,000 years, of South America.

But churning out the material at an industrial scale is what’s newer, said R. Scott Summers, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

While Douglas County’s facility will be a municipally run biochar operation, there are private biochar plants in the state. Most notable are Biochar Now in Berthoud and in Pueblo. Both companies got their start in 2011.

Summers has been experimenting with biochar production for more than two decades, using different methods, equipment and feedstock — the term for the input material that is to be turned into biochar.

He likes the equipment that Douglas County will be using — a $1.6 million Biomass Energy Technologies Pyrolysis Rotary Drum that decomposes organic waste at temperatures as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The machine weighs in at five tons and is 36 feet in length.

“At that scale, that’s the standard that is used,” Summers said.

Leef, with Carbon Dynamics, says organic waste is typically chipped down to 2-inch diameter wood chips and fed into the drum. After being exposed to a high temperature, the material is cooled and quenched with water. The limited oxygen involved in the process means little in the way of emissions is released, namely carbon dioxide.

“The vast majority of those carbon compounds are forced to bond with other carbon compounds (rather than oxygen),” Leef said.

According to a on biochar, the pyrolysis process “chemically and physically alters the composition of the biomass to produce a highly porous, stable form of organic matter.”

Biochar has multiple applications and uses, including yielding byproducts like bio-oil, syngas, wood vinegar, and thermal or electric power during its transformation. CSU also notes that biochar reduces greenhouse gas emissions by storing carbon and helps with water and nutrient cycling in agriculture.

Leef likens today’s biochar industry to where composting was 50 years ago — a quirky concept that will take time to gain widespread acceptance. But according to a December report from , the sector is poised to take off.

The firm estimated the 2024 value of the biochar industry at nearly $230 million, jumping to $258 million last year. By 2033, the sector is projected to reach a value of $652 million.

Sales of biochar, Leef said, could provide “an economic light at the end of the tunnel” for municipal leaders trying to make the numbers work.

Douglas County doesn’t see future biochar sales as a profit center — other than to set the project on a self-sustainable course. It expects the facility to reach the break-even point in just under a decade.

“The goal is to have more acreage treated and take the profit (from biochar sales) and put that into the mitigation program,” said Williams, the county’s wildfire mitigation expert.

Daniels, from Douglas County’s public works department, figures the plant can generate $2 million to $2.2 million annually from sales of biochar, while keeping annual operating costs at around $1.5 million a year.

Summers, the CU professor, had some questions about those numbers.

“If they’re dependent on that economic model, they really need to make sure the market is there,” he said.

That’s the job of Jared Tanaka, an environmental inspections supervisor for Douglas County. While homeowners will likely be able to get biochar from the county for free, Tanaka is working on developing a wholesale side to the operation.

That might include marketing biochar as a soil blender for horticultural and agricultural businesses, as well as for golf courses.

‘This is better’ than a landfill

As for ensuring there’s adequate feedstock for the biochar plant into the future, Williams said that’s not a concern.

The genesis of the idea of placing a facility in Douglas County, he said, came a couple of years ago during discussions with U.S. Forest Service personnel who were looking for a better way to dispose of forest waste.

Last month, the Forest Service , which will involve crews removing trees and other woody waste from the Pike National Forest along Rampart Range Road to .

Leef, the consultant, called the biomass that will be culled by the Forest Service over the next few years “ideal feedstock.” Free of barbed wire and nails, it provides the steady quality that works best in creating biochar.

“These units work best when you have a feedstock that is consistent and dry,” he said.

The facility itself will be being structured to have as little impact as possible on residents in Sedalia, Roberts said, including the construction of noise walls.

“Delivery of biomass and operation of the grinder and chipper will only be done during the day to minimize noise impacts,” he said. “Design of lighting will be done to minimize impacts while still providing needed illumination for security and safety.”

Forest Service trucks will arrive by appointment only so as not to overwhelm the neighborhood.

“We don’t want 50 trucks a day coming into this facility,” Roberts said.

Opp, with Knothead Tree and Lawn, said the new biochar plant will make his work feel more worthwhile and sustainable.

“I don’t want to see the wood chips we produce go straight to the landfill and do absolutely nothing for the environment,” he said. “This is better.”

Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy-Colorado, told members of the legislature’s Joint Energy Committee that the utility rarely resorts to planned outages, known as public safety power shutoffs.

Power shutoffs Dec. 17 and 19 affected tens of thousands of Xcel customers from the Boulder area to metro Denver. Other people lost power when hurricane-strength winds damaged electrical equipment.

A combination of fierce winds, dry weather and dry vegetation that could easily be ignited by downed power lines or damaged equipment led Xcel to announce it would cut the electricity in certain areas.

“We’re confident we made the right operational decision for public safety by conducting (the shutoffs),” Kenney said.

As wildfire-prone regions continue to get drier and warmer, Kenney said utilities are increasingly using the strategy to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. The shutoffs are just one of the tools Xcel has to address wildfire threats, he added.

“It����ap one that we use sparingly and judiciously when the most extreme weather conditions exist, as they did on Dec. 17 and 19,” Kenney said.

Xcel cut power to about 9,000 customers in mid-January when high winds battered northern Colorado.

Xcel’s wildfire mitigation plan for 2025-2027 calls for $1.9 billion in investments.

Lawmakers and members of the public who spoke during the legislative committee hearing said cutting power shouldn’t be the utility’s go-to response to extreme weather. They said the loss of power, which lasted days for some customers, resulted in financial losses for businesses heading into the holidays, for people whose food spoiled and potential harm for people without electricity for medical devices.

“Business lost critical revenue that weekend, the last weekend before Christmas,” said Democratic Rep. Tammy Story,who lives in Jefferson County. “I get that this pales to what you were trying to accomplish relative to wanting to mitigate wildfire risk. Nonetheless, the impacts were enormous.”

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission heard many of the same concerns during a public hearing Wednesday. The PUC is developing new rules for utilities that proactively cut off power during extreme weather and has scheduled another hearing for Monday.

PUC Director Rebecca White said the commissioners have approved $2 million for a program Xcel said it will start in February to offer rebates to income-qualified people for batteries they can use for medical machines when the electricity is off. She said the commission, which regulates Xcel and other investor-owned utilities, is working with the company on plans to section off parts of its system when extreme weather is forecast so it can more precisely target affected areas.

Xcel first preemptively cut power in April 2024 along the Front Range when hurricane-strength winds roared through the area. People and businesses reported losing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food. Local governments said critical public facilities were affected.

White and area emergency management officials said Xcel has made improvements since then and worked more closely with local governments during the latest shutoffs.

However, they and other speakers said the company needs to improve communications with agencies and the public. They said maps showing the outages weren’t updated and information about the shutoffs and the restoration of power was confusing and contradictory.

Some speakers questioned whether the planned outages are an attempt to avoid liability if Xcel is blamed for wildfires that erupt during wind storms. Kenney said the company’s wildfire prevention efforts aren’t aimed at fighting off lawsuits.

“Whether we did it or not, people are going to sue us,” Kenney said.

Winds of up to 100 mph and unusually dry conditions drove the Marshall fire Dec. 30, 2021, in Louisville, Superior and parts of unincorporated Boulder County. The fire killed two people, destroyed 1,084 homes and businesses and did more than $2 billion in property damage.

Investigators said the fire was caused in part by a blaze that ignited near part of Xcel’s electrical distribution system, where a power line became loose. Xcel, which faced hundreds of lawsuits in connection with the fire, agreed to a $640 million settlement in September.

Xcel has disputed that it was to blame for the fire.

The issue of Xcel reimbursing people and businesses for their losses during power shutoffs came up during the PUC and the legislative committee’s hearings. Kenney said that isn’t something utilities typically do. He said many people who lost power were not part of the planned shutoffs, raising questions about who should get compensation and who shouldn’t.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will hold an to take comments 4-6 p.m. Wednesday.

The PUC began asking for public feedback after Xcel Energy shut off electricity in December to more than 100,000 customers along the Front Range because winds were forecast to reach as high as 100 mph and the weather was abnormally dry.

People can fill out about the outages, called public safety power shutoffs. The link is https://bit.ly/4jW24Xi. for the public meeting by going to https://bit.ly/4kk3WcV.

Xcel first preemptively cut power in 2024 along the Front Range. Thousands of people lost power when the hurricane-strength winds roared through the area.

Then as during the latest shutoffs, people complained that Xcel didn’t keep the public updated, leaving them in the dark as to how long the electricity would be off. Restaurant owners told of tens of thousands of dollars in lost business and food. People said they couldn’t refrigerate medicine or turn on medical devices.

The PUC approved a series of requirements in 2024 for precautionary power shutdowns. In a December meeting, commissioners acknowledged customers’ frustrations, but added that the winds blew down hundreds of power lines onto the dry landscape.

Fierce winds and unusually dry conditions drove the Marshall fire Dec. 30, 2021, in Louisville, Superior and parts of unincorporated Boulder County. The fire killed two people, destroyed 1,084 homes and businesses and did more than $2 billion in property damage.

In September, as Xcel and two telecommunications firms faced a trial in lawsuits with more than 4,000 people, the utility agreed to a $640 million settlement in connection with the fire.

Investigators said the fire started in two places: private property when embers from an earlier fire reignited and near part of Xcel’s electrical distribution system, where a power line became loose. Xcel disputes that its equipment started one of the blazes.

Your recent online article, “Colorado weather: red flag warnings issued for critical fire danger,” and the anniversary of the Marshall Fire last month got me thinking about the connection between wildfires and climate change.

My own commitment to climate action was renewed when my grandmother evacuated in the wake of the Marshall fire, and your article on January 4th suggests Colorado can expect yet more extreme fire conditions this year, endangering more lives. We must commit to addressing climate change as part of wildfire mitigation efforts.

The connection between wildfires and climate change is clear on , which states: “Although some variations in the weather are natural, human-caused climate change has been found to be the main cause for increasing fire weather in the American West.” The website continues: “Over the past 20 years, the amount of land area burned each year has increased as wildfires have grown larger, while the number of fires each year has remained fairly constant.” Taken together, these findings show that fire is a growing problem for Western states and that climate change is supercharging this worrisome trend.

These harsh realities and current fire conditions must pressure local governments and politicians to set and meet ambitious climate goals to keep our home state livable for all.

Monterey Holland Buchanan, Denver

Yet, politicians, judges, journalists remain unmasked

I would like to remind your readers who support the masking of ICE agents because of possible threats to their lives, that judges who have ruled against this administration, politicians who oppose this administration and reporters who question this administration are not masked and have also been threatened by said administration and doxxed by the same. Some, in fact, have even been killed for their beliefs.

These individuals are not as heavily armed as ICE agents and are just as, if not more, vulnerable than these ICE agents, who, in many cases, have not been properly vetted or trained.  So civil disobedience and noncompliance are indeed justified.

Rochelle Davis, Denver

We can help stop puppy mills

Coloradans pride themselves on compassion, responsibility, and doing what����ap right. Allowing the retail sale of puppies from commercial dog breeders undermines those values. That����ap one of the many reasons why legislation, like the one recently introduced by House Majority Leader Monica Duran, Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez and Representative Karen McCormick, to ban these sales is so important.

Puppy mills produce puppies as cheaply and quickly as possible, often at the expense of the dogs’ health and well-being. When those puppies develop medical or behavioral issues, many of them end up being surrendered to shelters that are already stretched thin. Meanwhile, thousands of healthy dogs sit in Colorado shelters waiting for homes, as pet stores continue to fuel the puppy mill pipeline in Colorado by selling puppies. Many of these puppies are trucked in from out of state. Ending the retail sales of dogs is a crucial way to reduce demand from puppy mills. Cities and states across the country have adopted similar policies, including several localities in Colorado.

This bill would help align Colorado’s pet marketplace with our values and reduce unnecessary suffering. I strongly and respectfully urge Rep. Eliza Hamrick and Sen. Tom Sullivan to support this legislation — — and help ensure that Colorado ends the puppy mill pipeline in our state. No living, sentient being should suffer as these precious furry souls from puppy mills do. We are their salvation.

Elaine Knox, Centennial

Governor, don’t second-guess Peters’ sentence

Re: “Tina Peters and her attorneys are not helping her case for clemency,” Jan. 22 commentary

Thanks, Megan Schrader, for your column on Tina Peters. As you point out, she and her lawyers are lying about her recent fight with another incarcerated inmate and the video clearly shows that Peters was the aggressor.

I’d just add that while the sentence seemed harsh, we did not sit through the trial. The judge was able to observe Peters’ behavior while on bond before the trial, then during the trial and finally at sentencing. The judge clearly felt the sentence was appropriate given her charges and her unrepentant behavior. Gov. Jared Polis, please don’t second-guess this judge’s sentence.

J. Linden Hagans, Lakewood

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Fees increase for many reasons, but according to recent reporting by The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi, some of the biggest increases are a result spikes in property insurance premiums.

So profound is the problem in Colorado that in 2024, lawmakers gave the Colorado insurance commissioner two years and $329,863 to study the issue and report on their findings this January.

Now is the time for Colorado lawmakers to step up and help keep existing multi-unit housing affordable. Insurance releif will also assist single-family homes in subdivisions where HOAs have a hard time insuring community buildings and recreation centers.

We fear that since 2024, matters have only gotten worse for Coloradans living in multi-family units that share insurance coverage using an HOA. The extreme example is Broomfield, where condominium owners are now paying a premium for their property insurance because of the threat of wildfire — made apparent by the 2021 Marshall Fire fire that tore through Boulder County. The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi found some communities where HOA fees have doubled — or more — in response. And condominium housing values have plummetted 12% in a single year.

When the report is released this month, Colorado’s leaders need to take a long, hard look at how we can protect people from skyrocketing insurance costs and the subsequent increase in HOA fees. In theory, living in a condominium should protect people from skyrocketing insurance costs. If 50 people live under the same roof, sharing that cost burden of insuring that roof should be a fraction of the impact to individual homeowners. But because of complexities in the market, that is not the case.

“What we are seeing in the market over the past 12 months is that the premium increases seem to be stabilizing, but they are stabilizing at a place that’s really high,” said Michael Conway, Colorado’s insurance commissioner. “It is imperative to try to find ways to bring more affordability into the market. There isn’t an easy button. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

Conway said that the single biggest driver of homeowner’s insurance premium increases is hail damage claims. If you have ever seen roofers going door to door after a minor hail storm in Colorado, you might have an idea what is driving the claims and the costs.

In addition to the excess and sometimes dubious roof claims in Colorado, the condominiums are uniquely burdened by a shortage of companies offering insurance policies to multi-unit dwellings, especially in large complexes that require multi-million dollar policies with complex terms.

These units are insured through the surplus lines market — an insurance marketplace that exists largely unregulated for unique or high-risk properties. The nature of the market means that policies are not reviewed or approved by the Department of Insurance. The lack of standard language and other regulation also makes it more likely that HOAs will suffer surprises about what is and is not covered by these complex agreements. Instead the system relies on licensed agents to broker the deals and take a commission.

Colorado lawmakers need to take a long, hard look at the market for insurance for complex and hard-to-insure units. We are not suggesting that Colorado establish a state-owned insurance company for such units or even that it step up regulation. That ship has sailed.

But Colorado could play the role of a broker, providing free services to residents who live in HOA communities to help them navigate these systems, shop for options and perhaps qualify for Colorado’s new insurance of last resort.

That is just one of many ideas that lawmakers should investigate after the report is released this month.

Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, who was an author on the legislation requiring the study, said she is open to any and all suggestions.

“I’m eager to get my hands on the report in the next week or two and see what direction it might take us,” McCluskie told The Denver Post. “We should open every door and explore every option.”

McCluskie said residents in her mountain town communities are suffering from the insurance prices and are struggling to keep units insured and affordable.

Colorado lawmakers have a responsibility in 2026 to make this a top priority. The report will guide the way, but not if it sits on a shelf after it is released. There are ways to help HOAs navigate these systems and to create a fair field of competition for insurers, if only we can find the political will to make it happen.

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The Public Utilities Commission addressed the outages Tuesday morning during its regular weekly meeting with commission chairman Eric Blank acknowledging people’s frustration, but also saying the strong winds blew down hundreds of power lines onto abnormally dry ground.

“I recognize that these Xcel shutoffs disrupted families, schools, businesses, travel and caused substantial losses for many at the same time,” Blank said. “However, there were wind gusts of over 100 mph and there were hundreds of down power lines at a time when the moisture content of the soil was unusually low. Fortunately, there were no catastrophic wildfires, so let’s count our blessings for that.”

Boulder County woman still without power calls Xcel ‘tone deaf’ after it thanked those who lost power

The commission is asking people affected by the planned outages -- known as Public Safety Power Shutoffs -- to in anticipation of a rulemaking hearing in 2026 that will establish protocols the state's largest utility company must follow when it decides to cut off power to minimize its wildfire risk.

The survey can be found at .

Xcel turned off power to tens of thousands of homes on Wednesday and Friday to minimize its wildfire risks because of extreme weather. But residents who were impacted grew frustrated over Xcel's lack of communication about what was happening and how long they could expect electricity to be off.

Fewer than 200 residents, mostly in Boulder County, remained without electricity as of Monday night, according to.

The outages caused schools and businesses, including a ski resort, to close, and RTD was forced to suspend some light rail service in Jefferson County. The outages drew criticism from Gov. Jared Polis, who called for better transparency and clearer communication to customers.

The utility company instituted the preemptive power shutoffs after the 2021 Marshall fire, when wind gusts fueled a massive blaze through dry open space and into heavily populated areas in Louisville and Superior. In September, Xcel agreed to a $640 million settlement in connection with the fire.

Last week was the second time the power company instituted the shutoffs.

Xcel on Tuesday posted a message on the social media website X to thank customers for their patience and support during the windstorms, which damaged power lines and utility poles.

"We know being without power is disruptive and can be frustrating, so we take the decision to implement a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) very seriously, and we only take that step in the most extreme situations," the .

The Public Utilities Commission was restrained in its comments on Tuesday, striking a balance between understanding the dangerous situation while also acknowledging the need for regulations on how Xcel manages its power shutoffs.

"Obviously, we've been dealing with unseasonably warm weather throughout the entire state and have been free of any moisture for far too long. So it's a very difficult weather circumstance," commissioner Megan Gilman said. "We'll obviously be looking after the fact at how all the details went with regard to the PSPS, but also the outages that followed as a result of the wind event. But we could really use some help from Mother Nature here, too, to ease the conditions that made this so particularly dangerous."

Denver and the Front Range are experiencing a record-setting hot and dry snow season. A Nov. 29 snow was the second-latest on record for Denver, and this year's season is off to a particularly poor snowpack, sitting at 70% of the median recorded between 1991 and 2020, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Water and Climate Center.

Blank said his home lost power both days last week and his family was forced to throw away food that spoiled in the refrigerator and freezer. He suggested the commission consider asking Xcel to reimburse customers to offset at least some of those losses during emergency power shutoffs.

The commissioners also questioned how households that require electricity to power medical equipment fared. The PUC previously had instructed Xcel to work with local health departments to identify those customers and provide backup power to them. However, the commissioners said they were not sure how far along Xcel was in that process since these power shutoffs are a relatively new wildfire prevention strategy.

Xcel previously agreed to a set of protocols about its Public Safety Power Shutoffs, including providing the public 72 hours' advance notice of the potential for outages and coordinating with local governments to ensure hospitals, water treatment facilities and other critical infrastructure could operate.

In 2026, the Public Utilities Commission plans to create permanent rules for the public safety outages although it will not take up the role of approving or denying the utility company's decisions to temporarily turn off electricity.