Meadow council to review Cooperative Wildfire System agreement and draft WUI ordinance

Peterson, with RSLIC Regional Council, told the Meadow Town Council that the Cooperative Wildfire System (CWS) agreement and the 2024 Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) building code will require municipal action if Meadow wants the state to assume incident designation and related cost-sharing on large wildfires.

Why it matters: Signing the CWS can change which agency assumes responsibility for large wildfires and ties municipal standards for new construction to the WUI code. Council members said the town currently has no areas designated as WUI and that adopting the code could be recorded by saying Meadow has no WUI zones rather than producing a map of such areas.

Peterson outlined the trade-offs and next steps, offering a draft ordinance to adopt the 2024 WUI building code and saying he would provide it to council members. Presenter (S2) criticized the state WUI map’s accuracy, calling it “garbage,” and said the town attorney advised to sign the CWS and move forward; the presenter and others discussed how annexing land inside mapped high-risk zones would require new construction there to meet WUI standards.

Council members asked for the draft ordinance to be emailed for review and agreed to schedule a public hearing on the WUI ordinance before any final action. No formal vote or ordinance adoption occurred at this meeting.

Next steps: Council staff will circulate the draft ordinance and the CWS document for review, and the council plans a public hearing to consider adopting the WUI ordinance and any related local measures.