…The number of homes built in the wildland-urban interface — private land where human development can intermingle with undeveloped forests on neighboring public land — is a concern across the West, according to Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, which has extensively studied the costs of fighting wildland fires.
A 2007 study by the nonprofit surveyed every county in the West, documenting the percentage of the wildland-urban interface that was developed. The study found that Boulder County — where 60 percent of the wildland-urban interface has been developed — ranked No. 1 in Colorado for dense development in that fire-prone area and No. 10 across the 11 Western states. According to Headwaters Economics, Boulder County has 5,409 homes spread across 57 square miles of wildland-urban interface.…