An emergency ordinance requiring stricter fire codes in Mountain Shadows following the Waldo Canyon fire was shelved for four weeks Tuesday by the Colorado Springs City Council.

The council decided not to create a special ordinance for Mountain Shadows but to wait to include the fire-ravaged community in proposed fire code changes coming before the council in four weeks that will affect homeowners in all of the city’s forested hillsides.

“I know that our city is being very reactive because we care and want to do something instantaneously to help the homeowners,” City Councilwoman Lisa Czelatdko said.

“I am just concerned about one, setting the precedent and two, the exclusion of a larger hillside conversation because I know that the residents that I represent are going to want to be engaged in this conversation,” said Czelatdko, who represents the southwest area of the city.

The proposed fire code changes for new construction in Mountain Shadows would require fire resistant roofs, siding and decks and prohibit “combustible brush, trees or shrubs” within 15 feet of a home or accessory structure, such as a shed or deck.

Fire Marshal Brett Lacey said he proposed the fire codes for Mountain Shadows not only to make homes more resistant to fire but to help homeowners whose insurance companies will pay for upgrades only if the new codes are in place.

But Mountain Shadows residents urged the council to make their community part of the larger conversation about the city’s urban wildland interface.

“This is an opportunity to propose something …to promote safety throughout our city so that the rest of our mountainside doesn’t end up looking like Mountain Shadows,” said Cindy Maluschka, whose home was destroyed in the fire.

“It feels unfair and it feels like yet another, I don’t know, harm being done to you that you can’t do a lot about,” she said.

Another resident, Marc Sabin, said he thought it was “essential” to include Mountain Shadows “in the overall context of what we’re doing across the city.” He said he recently saw a home being built in the Broadmoor neighborhood surrounded by trees.

“If we just take a very narrow focus, I think we’re making ourselves a bigger problem in the future,” he said.

“The (fire) has already happened in Mountain Shadows because 346 odd homes have been destroyed. We’re not going to save a lot by rushing to judgment here,” he said.

“In my experience, a rush to judgment without clear criteria, without clear understanding of definition of terms is a recipe for disaster and we’ve already had enough of that.”

At least one resident, Mary Harrow, said the fire code changes are unnecessary. She told the council that the city was making her life “miserable.”

“I know that everybody wants to do something to help,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s done. The emergency is over. Let us rebuild with the same damn stuff we had.”

Despite having a fire-resistant house with stucco and a concrete roof, the fire still destroyed it, Harrow said.

“I had mitigated twice a year,” she said. “I don’t care what you do. It was a firestorm.”

Ralph Morehead rakes through ash debris of his fire ravaged house on Majestic Drive, Monday, July 23, 2012. Photo by CAROL LAWRENCE, THE GAZETTE

CAROL LAWRENCE